• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.219-230
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• 2010

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.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.59-86
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• 2005

This study examined whether the efforts of department store for recovering services may be perceived fairly from the standpoint of customers upon any occurrence of service failure, whether such perceived justice contributes to higher customer satisfaction and trust, and whether such customer satisfaction and trust have positive influence on store loyalty of customers, respectively. For this sake, this study investigated relevant literatures, set up some hypotheses to solve main questionable considerations and made a corresponding empirical analysis. For empirical analysis, a questionnaire survey was applied to total 204 customers who experienced in service recovery around domestic major department stores in the last one(1) year. With regard to empirical analysis to verify some hypotheses hereof, this study verified the reliability and validity of each questionnaire item by means of statistical programs like SPSS 10,0 and AMOS 4.0, followed by verifying hypotheses through SEM(structural equation modeling) analysis. These results indicate that positive efforts of department stores for service recovery upon their service failure may bring customer satisfaction and trust in department store, which result in boosting up store loyalty of customers. In this empirical study, it was notably demonstrated that despite any occurrence of service failure, the corresponding efforts of department stores to improve the level of justice perceived by customers in course of service recovery, had positive effects on better customer satisfaction, trust and store loyalty, and these effects induced customer's continuous repurchase, positive WOM(word of mouth) and recommendation about the use of appropriate department store, which may contribute to better its competitive edge.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.39-62
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• 2020

Purpose - Korean exports account for a vast proportion of Korean GDP, and large volumes of Korean products are sold in the United States. Identifying and characterizing actual and potential product hazards related to Korean products is critical to safeguard Korean export trade, as severe quality issues can impair Korea's reputation and reduce global consumer confidence in Korean products. In this study, we develop country-of-origin-based product risk analysis methods for social media with a specific focus on Korean-labeled products, for the purpose of safeguarding Korean export trade. Design/methodology - We employed two social media datasets containing consumer-generated product reviews. Sentiment analysis is a popular text mining technique used to quantify the type and amount of emotion that is expressed in the text. It is a useful tool for gathering customer opinions regarding products. Findings - We document and discuss the specific potential risks found in Korean-labeled products and explain their implications for safeguarding Korean export trade. Finally, we analyze the false positive matches that arise from the established dictionaries that were used for risk discovery and utilize these classification errors to suggest opportunities for the future refinement of the associated automated text analytic methods. Originality/value - Various studies have used online feedback from social media to analyze product defects. However, none of them links their findings to trade promotion and the protection of a specific country's exports. Therefore, it is important to fill this research gap, which could help to safeguard export trade in Korea.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.269-282
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to compare consumer satisfaction by analyzing importance on characteristics of clothing, performance, and their inconsistency between Korea and the United States. The data was collected by using a survey based on three sages of pre-tests, and main survey conducted in The U.S and Korea. Data of 520 participants from each country (260 males and 260 females) was used. The results of this study is as follows: First, both consumers in Korea and U.S. showed five factors such as aesthetics/trend, body shape, practical use/wearing, care, and distorted. In performance factor of Korean students was consisted of wearing/care, aesthetics, body shape, distorted, and trend/symbolism while that of American students was consisted of wearing, aesthetics, body shape, trend/image factor, and distorted. Second, regarding importance rate, aesthetics/trend, practical use/wearing, care, and distorted affected satisfaction of Korean students whereas aesthetics/trend factor affected satisfaction of American students. Regarding performance, body shape factor, distorted, trend/symbolic affected satisfaction of Korean students whereas trend/image affected satisfaction of American students. Third, satisfaction of Korean and American students influenced re-purchase intention and positive word-of-mouth, so proved to be the result variable of satisfaction. By understanding the differences between consumers in Korea and U.S., apparel importers and exporters may develop effective business strategies to better fulfill their customers' needs and desires, and therefore, increase their profit.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.177-186
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• 2016

This study aims to explore the effect of characteristics of eWOM(Word-of-mouth) on consumer attitude in SNS(Social Network Service). The characteristics of WOM were classified into characteristics of message (polarity, verifiability, consensus) and characteristics of SNS (social presence, interaction). Data of 554 samples were collected from the university students of SNS users. The key results showed that the polarity of the WOM has a strong positive effect on consumer's attitude, and the degree of verifiability and consensus has a moderating effect on the polarity-attitude relationship. On the contrary, characteristics of SNS such as social presence and interaction have a direct effect on consumer attitude and have no significant moderating effect on the polarity-attitude relationship. This study provides an academic enhancement in the research of the relationship between the characteristics of WOM and consumer's attitude in the SNS environment. Practical implications are also drawn from these findings.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.75-86
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• 2017

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to grasp the concept, characteristics and application status of sharing economy, and to derive a research model based on sharing economic service, and to analyze factors and influences of consumers' intention to reuse of sharing economy. Research design, data, and methodology - The questionnaires were created to examine variables for practical and theoretical implications. After pilot survey, conducted for 24 days from March 10th to April 2st in 2017, total numbers were 377. But 330 copies were used for the analysis with IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 and IBM SPSS AMOS 23.0. The structural equation model was applied for this. Results - First, sharing economic services remain at an early stage, but it is meaningful to identify the revenue mechanism of the business model of the sharing economic platform. Second, in this study, it is meaningful that we systematized the theoretical structure by examining existing studies on the characteristics of the sharing economic service and consumer characteristics, and by examining empirically. Third, Satisfaction and Reliability are related to the characteristics of Sharing Economic Service (Security, Convenience, Discount, Sharing, Social Interaction), Consumer Characteristics (Personal Innovation, Word-of-Mouth) It is meaningful to broaden the understanding of the factors by verifying the mediating effect. Fourth, the sharing economy business is meaningful in that it is a new consumption trend that changes the meaning of consumption to consumers. Gradually, more and more people are recalling that purchasing something is not consumption, but sharing and borrowing is also consumption. In other words, through the sharing economy, consumers can experience more products and services, have more choices, and are expected to have a positive impact on economic growth by increasing the utilization of idle resources. Conclusions - Currently, the sharing economy is growing rapidly all over the world. Therefore, in the subsequent study, it is necessary to compare Korea and China's sharing economy and study the cultural and social characteristics of Korea and China. In particular, I think that steady research is necessary for more precise and specific direction on the influence of the shared economy.

• The Korean Fashion and Textile Research Journal
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.756-765
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• 2014

Customer-company (C-C) identification is the perceived fit between the identities of a consumer and an organization. If a consumer identifies with a company that places a high priority on being socially responsible, a consumer who also values social responsibility may support and patronize that business because of the link between something that is important to both them and the company. Because C-C identification may explain the success of cause-related marketing (CRM) in the fashion industry, we investigated the effect of an image resulting from CRM on ratings of brand attributes (e.g., distinctiveness, credibility, attractiveness), identification with the brand, attitude toward the brand, and customer loyalty. Participants also responded to open-ended questions reflecting their rationale for their ratings of brand attributes. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduates (n = 228) enrolled at Midwestern University in the U.S. Structural equation modeling revealed that as ratings of the social responsibility of the cause-related marketing effort increased so did perceptions of the brand's distinctiveness, credibility, and attractiveness. Participants identified with a brand when they rated the brand as attractive. Participants' identification with a brand had a significant impact on attitudes toward the brand and customer loyalty (e.g., purchase intention, willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth). Content analyses of open-ended responses supported the idea that brand images stemming from CRM exert an important influence on consumer's ratings of brand attributes. Fashion marketers interested in cause-related marketing will find success with efforts that increase customer identification.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.13-24
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• 2012

This study aimed to investigate the images that affect general travel behavior and satisfaction of eco-tourists of Section seven of Jeju Olle-gil and to give eco-tourists preferred images to newly constructed eco-tour sections. Adjectives were selected to evaluate images, and for analysis, a survey was carried out with 132 persons who have toured 7 section of Jeju Olle-gil. On this survey, basic travel type, overall satisfaction, image before and after experience, age, gender, satisfaction level and accompanying type were inquired. 81(61.4%) knew section 7 of Jeju Olle-gil 'in advance', and 58(39.1%), which takes up the largest portion in this question, came to choose section 7 by a word of mouth. 95(71.9%) answered that they stayed 2 nights and 3 days, and 55(41.7%) answered that they stayed at a pension as accommodation. As for accompanying type, 34(25.7%) answered they accompanied family and relatives. As for the decision of visit, 60(45.5%) replied that they decided one month prior to the visit. And as for the purpose of visit, 63 (33.8%) replied they visited to appreciate nature. The adjectives that demonstrate overall satisfaction and significance level of the tourists were 'placid', 'refreshing', 'living', 'mountainous' and 'green'. As for the satisfaction level, people were satisfied with its environment, cleanliness level and direction boards. The types of section preferred by the tourists were clay pavements, followed by sand-masa soil mixture pavement and wooden deck pavement. 'Oidolgae' section was selected as the representative section, and 10:00a.m.~12:00p.m. was preferred as visiting time. And it is also proved that people were positive in appointing photo zones.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.157-165
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• 2010

As the result of correlation, the viewing rate of terrestrial broadcasting programs has a little bit affect on online VOD use. In addition, WOM(word of mouth) and online referral importantly influences to the picking with online VOD drama. The great popularity of main actors on drama affect a little bit the viewing of VOD drama but doesn't perfectly affect on it. However, the drama which is performed by great popular actors has positive affect on VOD use. This study result shows that the using of video depends on the effect of WOM, referral and commercial. The casting of a great popular actors plays role of the safeguard which affects viewing rate and add-value. That means the casting of a great popular actors doesn't connect with the success of release but the tool of defense from loss of profit.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.217-225
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• 2023

The willingness of online music users to pay is the key to the protection of music copyright and the sustainable development of the industry. This paper aims to study the influencing factors of online music users' willingness to pay based on exploratory analysis. Based on the theory of customer perceived value, the unified theory of technology acceptance and use, and the theory of fan enthusiasm, the research model is constructed. Validate the obtained 583 valid data. Through analysis, I got that perceived value, interpersonal influence, fan enthusiasm, and personal payment awareness directly affect online music users' willingness to pay; practical value and hedonic value have a positive impact on perceived value, and the impact of economic cost and compilation cost has not reached a significant level; Online word-of-mouth negatively moderates the impact of perceived value on users' willingness to pay for music. Music platforms can formulate operating policies based on this.