Understanding the Effects of Branded Paid Search Advertising: The Case of Direct-to-Consumer (Online-Only DTC) Brands
This research looks at the effects of stopping branded paid search advertising for small online-only Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) brands on sessions, transactions, and sales. Over the nine experiments, our results show no effect of stopping branded paid search advertising on the critical dependent variables mentioned above. That suggests that small online-only DTC brands would be better off spending their money on alternative online growth strategies, such as improving organic search results (SEO), buying generic search terms, or buying online display ads, rather than on branded paid search advertising.
‘Pick Me, Pick Me!’: Standing Out in E-Commerce
In today’s cluttered shopping environments, brands must stand out from their competitors to be noticed. Online, increasing competititon means little attention is afforded to individual brands. The use of visual design elements on packaging, such as colours, logos, and text, help attract shopper attention. This thesis examines the impact of visual elements on brand prominence, both online and in-store, across 11 CPG categories in two studies. The main implication is that brand owners should prioritise the use of colour in both shopping environments. Besides colour, an appealing package design can attract attention. Larger brands have a prominence advantage over smaller brands, but small brands can achieve comparable prominence through distinctive visual elements. Moreover, private label brands are less prominent than national brands, likely due to a lack of advertising. For both small and private label brands, the task of building and using distinctive visual elements is of increased importance.
A Review of Offline and Online Brand Presence Measures
Past research has presented frameworks of existing definitions and measures of physical availability, albeit not necessarily focusing on the brand presence element of it. There is also no evidence to suggest the information reported in these studies was gathered through a systematic review of marketing literature or based on a direct appraisal of managers’ views. Additionally, these studies did not delineate and compare the offline and online domains.
To address these issues, this thesis includes two studies: Study 1 is a systematic literature review (SLR) conducted to identify existing offline and online brand presence measures. Study 2 is based on the results of an online survey targeting over 50 marketing practitioners from different consumer good categories and countries. The survey examined respondents’ awareness, use and perceived level of usefulness of the measures identified in Study 1.
The inventory of offline and online brand presence measures this thesis created can assist academics and practitioners to find, evaluate and compare indicators of this important driver of brand growth ‘all in one place’. Besides forming an epistemological base for future research endeavours on the topic, the list can guide managers to understand and track brand presence in different domains, adding confidence to multi- channel and omni-channel practices.
How online shoppers behave
An observational study was undertaken to study shoppers conducting an online shop from two large supermarket retailers with varied online shopping interfaces. The shoppers’ task was to purchase one item from each of the 12 product categories. Their shops were videoed and the resultant video was coded to document key patterns including selection times across categories, pages viewed, locations of selected items and the usage of various display settings. A post-shop questionnaire captured demographic information allowing comparisons between differing shopper profiles; while comparisons between retailers were made to determine if online shopping interfaces impact shopper behaviour.
Does music stimulate social video sharing?
Drawing upon recent findings, this study aims to determine whether high (or low) arousal videos share common structural musical elements, and in-turn whether rates of video sharing are influenced by music. This research contributes to the existing literature and will assist practitioners in creating more successful social videos, increasing the efficiency of social media marketing expenditure.
The validity of online proprietary panels and for social and marketing research
This thesis examines the representativeness of six proprietary panels built to represent the populations of six local areas in South Australia. The thesis investigates the demographic, behavioural and attitudinal representativeness of the panels, quantifies the biases that exist and determines whether these biases affect the generalisability of survey results to a managerially significant degree, or not. Looking across more than 50 studies commissioned with these panels over three years, this thesis establishes the effect of involvement and demographic biases on a range of commonly collected results including satisfaction, organisational performance, agreement-related, awareness, and likelihood results. This provides insight into types of marketing and social research that online panels can be validly used for and the degree to which self-selection, coverage, and nonresponse biases affect the generalisability of results. Examining data collected over more than three years, how the representativeness of online panels changes over time as a consequence of growth, attrition, and conditioning are investigated.
To what degree is online word-of-mouth representative of offline word-of-mouth?
Word‐of‐mouth (WOM) can be transmitted within two environments: offline and online. Offline WOM refers to any informal discussion about products and services, taking place either face‐to‐ face, over the telephone or through written letters (Charlett, Garland, & Marr, 1995; Eubank & Fay, 2008). In an online environment, these same conversations occur over the Internet. Despite a substantial increase in Internet usage rates in recent years (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008), there is currently a limited body of knowledge on WOM and its effects in an electronic context. This study examines how representative online WOM is of offline WOM through investigation into two key areas: the reasons for giving WOM and the impact that WOM has on those receiving.
A comparison of on-line and in-store customer behaviour in wine retailing
This thesis provides a starting point in determining how existing retail knowledge can be adapted to the Internet by comparing aspects of customer behaviour on and off-line. The advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) signified global opportunities for members and stakeholders of the wine industry. Wine retailers have been quick to trial the on-line format and their trials have been met with varying degrees of success. Wine producers have also seized opportunities to promote and sell their products via the Internet. In recent years tax incentives have been introduced to encourage wine producers to sell directly to the consumer, with most wine producers being located in rural areas the Internet offers an opportunity to bring customers closer to wine products. This thesis utilises data collected through a customer database and via surveys customer behaviour has been compared.
The Forms that World Wide Web Advertisements Take
The objective of this thesis is to describe advertising practice, “Does advertising seek to persuade or rather to create and refresh memories through Creative Publicity?”. Instead of prescribing what advertising should do, or what is most effective, this thesis looks at the forms that advertisements take (FAT). The research describes advertising from world wide web media and extends a series of FAT studies undertaken in the UK which examined advertising from traditional media. The forms that advertisements take are related to the theories of how advertisements work and compared to the original FAT studies.
A hedonic perspective in studying the visual effects of Web page design for effective Web marketing
The major aim of this study was to identify the relative effects of three features of Response toward Web Interface (RWI) - namely Animated Colour Background, Animated Graphics and Animated Text - on their advertising promotion effectiveness as measured by the number of accesses to various Web pages.
