Knowledge that Transforms

What drives the liking of video advertisements? The authors analyzed neural signals during ad exposure from three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data sets (113 participants from two countries watching 85 video ads) with automated meta-analytic decoding (Neurosynth). These brain-based measures of psychological processes—including perception and language (information processing), executive function and memory (cognitive functions), and social cognition and emotion (social-affective response)—predicted subsequent self-report ad liking, with emotion and memory being the earliest predictors after the first three seconds. Over the span of ad exposure, while the predictiveness of emotion peaked early and fell, that of social cognition had a peak-and-stable pattern, followed by a late peak of predictiveness in perception and executive function. At the aggregate level, neural signals—especially those associated with social-affective response—improved the prediction of out-of-sample ad liking compared with traditional anatomically based neuroimaging analysis and self-report liking. Finally, early-onset social-affective response predicted population ad liking in a behavioral replication. Overall, this study helps delineate the psychological mechanisms underlying ad processing and ad liking and proposes a novel neuroscience-based approach for generating psychological insights and improving out-of-sample predictions.

Opportunities for the shared consumption of publicly available products that once might have been considered personal-use only, such as hand sanitizers and shampoos, are proliferating in the consumer environment. This work explores shared product consumption in these underresearched, but now ubiquitous, contexts. The authors suggest and find, over a series of five studies and across a variety of product domains, that sharing a product with strangers (i.e., sharing-out) engenders a lower sense of identification with the product, which leads to lower perceived product efficacy. They further show that the dampening effect of sharing-out on efficacy perceptions is limited to consumers high in self–brand connection.

Owners value heritage goods, items that connect them to a shared past, whether through their alma mater or their family history. This research considers the impact of heritage on owners who wish to sell such goods. In five studies, the authors demonstrate that sellers have a lower willingness to accept when selling heritage goods to buyers with a shared heritage connection relative to buyers without this connection (i.e., a heritage discount). This heritage discount cannot be explained by ingroup favoritism, sentimental value, or appropriateness of buyer usage and persists even when sellers perceive that the buyer has a higher willingness to pay. The authors provide process evidence that the effect of the buyer's identity on the seller's willingness to accept is driven by concerns about heritage loss. The findings contribute to literatures on sharing, sentimental goods, psychological ownership, and the endowment effect and have marketing implications for consumer goods (e.g., collectibles) that derive product value by connecting consumers to meaningful history and traditions.

Many numerical expressions contain a separator such as a comma (e.g., 1,234) or a decimal point (e.g., 12.34) that divides the number into left and right parts. This research examines how individuals compare such numbers as a function of psychological distance. Integrating insights from research on diagnosticity, numerical cognition, and mental construal, the authors hypothesize that as psychological distance increases, the perceived diagnosticity of digits to the right of a separator (hereinafter “right digits”) decreases faster than that of the digits to the left of a separator (hereinafter “left digits”), which leads individuals to assign less weight to the right digits in comparative judgment. Four studies offer triangulating support for this theorizing and the underlying mechanism. In addition, the authors show that this effect is attenuated or suppressed when individuals perceive that numerical ratings are more stable over time (thereby increasing the perceived diagnosticity of right digits; Study 3) and when the distinction between left and right digits is made less obvious (e.g., when removing the digit separator; Study 4). This research offers additional nuance to our understanding of numerical cognition and how psychological distance influences the processing of different types of information.

Sales managers are unlikely to reap the benefits of implementing predictive analytics applications when salespeople show aversion to or lack understanding of these applications. For managers, it is essential to understand which factors mitigate or exacerbate these challenges. This article investigates these factors by studying the implementation of an application that predicts customer churn. Using 9.7 million transactions from a business-to-business company, the authors develop a predictive model of customer churn, implement it in a field experiment, and study its treatment effects using causal forests. Furthermore, the authors manipulate one specific mitigation strategy proposed by prior literature: the fostering of users’ realistic expectations regarding the accuracy of an algorithm. The results show that the effectiveness of the churn prediction application strongly depends on customer characteristics (most importantly the predicted churn probability and prior revenue) and salesperson characteristics (technology perceptions, abilities, and selling orientations). Fostering realistic expectations improves the effectiveness of the churn prediction only under very specific circumstances. Two follow-up stimuli-based experiments conceptually replicate key results of the field study. Therefore, this article helps build theory on predictive sales analytics and provides specific guidance to managers aiming to increase their return on analytics investments.

Slow motion is a popular video editing tool used to enhance short-form videos (e.g., reels, stories, GIFs), which are commonly found in media entertainment and marketing communications. This research shows that slow motion increases the virality (e.g., likes, votes, views) of short-form videos and boosts brand liking, choice, and willingness to pay. The effect occurs because slow motion enhances the hedonic component of the viewing experience via processing fluency. By documenting how the success of slow motion is subject to moderators, this work shows marketers, entertainment producers, and everyday people how to use slow motion more effectively. Across a large-scale field data set and six experiments, the authors highlight that slow motion is especially effective when applied to short-form videos that are inherently pleasant and that involve complex movements that are difficult to perceive at regular speed. However, even simple movements benefit from slow motion when content creators zoom in on subtle movements to increase complexity. Moreover, slow motion is more effective when viewers engage in less elaborate processing. Finally, the authors show that the perceived disfluency of fast-motion editing is effective at boosting brand evaluations when viewers desire excitement.

Soda taxes are an increasingly popular policy tool that discourages purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages. This study analyzes how emphasis on marketing conduct elements and their effectiveness might change after soda tax introductions. Prior studies on the effect of soda taxes focus on price increases but neglect other relevant marketing conduct tools (i.e., promotional frequency, promotional discount depth, and feature promotion frequency). This study documents the changes to marketing conduct elements and their effectiveness due to the introduction of soda tax across more than 200 retail stores in five markets. Findings related to price changes are consistent with prior literature; in addition, the study reveals a substantial, hitherto overlooked decrease in promotional frequency (−2%), promotional depth (−12%), and feature promotion frequency (−14%) compared with matched control markets, exacerbating the tax's negative sales effect. Introducing a soda tax also considerably influences the marketing conduct's effectiveness, such that consumers become less sensitive to changes in regular price, feature promotions, and the depth of the promotional discount but respond more to the presence of promotions. Importantly, marketing conduct and effectiveness changes do not align (e.g., while consumers become more sensitive to promotion frequency, managers often reduce them), a relevant insight for policy making.

A common problem faced by contemporary retailers is consumers’ tendency to avoid purchases that postpone or prevent cash flow for retailers, thus negatively affecting retailers’ sales and profits. Little is known about the factors that drive consumers to avoid purchases or about marketing tactics that may reduce the tendency, especially from a cultural perspective. The authors attempt to fill this gap by exploring the role of an important cultural variable, namely, power distance belief (PDB), on consumers’ tendency to avoid purchases. PDB is the extent to which people accept and endorse inequalities in society. A series of 14 studies (including 6 studies in the Web Appendix ) using a variety of operationalizations of the key variables suggest that consumers high (vs. low) in PDB are less likely to avoid purchases (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c) because they generally perceive greater constraints on their behavior (Study 2). These constraints are aversive, triggering the desire to overcome them and to have more as a compensatory mechanism, thereby reducing the tendency to avoid purchases. Accordingly, low (but not high) PDB consumers’ tendency to forgo purchases is significantly decreased when they perceive greater constraints on their choices and decisions (Study 3) and when they experience a high social density (Study 4). However, high (but not low) PDB consumers’ tendency to avoid purchases significantly increases when individuals perceive that constraints facilitate hierarchy (Study 5) or that constraints lead to positive outcomes (Study 6). Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

The prevalence of misinformation has spurred various interested parties—regulators, the media, and competing firms—to debunk false claims in the marketplace. This research examines whether such debunking messages provided by these parties can impact consumer purchase behavior. If so, does debunking effectively correct consumers’ misinformed beliefs—an ideal outcome from a policy maker's perspective—or does it merely reinforce correct beliefs, as predicted by biased belief updating? With theory providing contradictory predictions, the authors design and implement a conjoint experiment that enables measurement of willingness to pay under exposure to real-world misinformation and debunking messages. Focusing on three ingredients in product categories where misinformation is prevalent (aluminum in deodorant, fluoride in toothpaste, and genetically modified organisms in food), the authors find that debunking plays an important role in mitigating the impact of misinformation. More specifically, debunking can attenuate the decrease in willingness to pay caused by misinformation by correcting misbeliefs, a promising finding for policy makers. The authors discuss the incentives for firms to debunk misinformation or to introduce new products that conform to misinformation.

Three field studies and a laboratory experiment reveal racial discrimination in financial loan services. The results show that (1) service employees provide Black (vs. White) customers with inferior service outcomes (i.e., products offered), (2) Black (vs. White) customers experience inferior service processes (employees’ warmth/competence), and (3) Black (vs. White) customers report lower loyalty intentions toward the firm. Such discrimination is not only morally wrong and illegal; it is also bad for business. Therefore, the authors also show when and why racial discrimination is mitigated: namely, when Black customers signal higher socioeconomic status, or a Black customer's company (for which they seek the loan) has a more complex and sophisticated legal structure (corporation vs. sole proprietorship). Exploring this mitigation effect further, the authors show that a more sophisticated business structure increases the employee's trust toward Black customers, which reduces the perceived default likelihood and increases the likelihood to offer a loan; yet, this process does not emerge for White applicants. The findings point to managerial and policy implications to mitigate racial discrimination.