Abstract
Gender has always been a favourite topic of researchers to dig down. Considerable research works have focused the role of gender in the domain of consumer behaviour, but there is much more to explore in the area of experiential marketing as it is relatively a new concept in this field. The article discusses an examination of the differences in the ways men and women perceive sense, feel, think, act and relate experiences while using social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Purpose of the study is to examine the gender differences within the context of five experiences of experiential marketing. Through convenience sampling, 250 set of questionnaires were distributed to the university students, out of which 226 were found usable. T-test was applied for the analysis of data using SPSS software version 21. Shopping habits of women are considered to be highly influenced by social media. But results of the study indicate that men relate the experience provided by the sites with them more than the women do. Marketers can use the findings in tailoring their sites to enhance the customer experience.
Introduction
Internet today has far-reaching influence on human beings. Its impression can be seen on almost all aspects of our lives. In fact, it has become such a vital part of us that new generation of humans cannot even imagine their lives without Internet (Amichai-hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). The communication forums of the Internet provides different applications, such as instant messaging, e-mails, chat rooms, blogs, social networking sites (SNS), photos and videos sharing sites as YouTube. Studies show that emerging adults use these SNS to connect with the people of offline worlds (Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter & Espinoza, 2008). The growing predominance of Internet has increased the importance of investigating online consumer behaviour from the gender perspective. Male and female usually process information and make decisions in different ways. Women are at par with men in Internet population (Kim, Lehto & Morrison, 2007). Prior research works show that men are more likely than women to change their behaviour when visible to others (Melnyk & van Osselaer, 2012). Men are likely to develop a strong attachment to the identity of the community to which they belong. On the other hand, women tend to develop common bonds at the individual relationship level (Porter, Donthu & Baker, 2012). Females, when online, are likely to think that consumers have more useful information and knowledge than themselves. It is said that men are more associated with technology and women are considered as passive users (Bae & Lee, 2011). Boyd and Ellison (2007) defined SNS as
Internet based services that give individuals three major capabilities: First, the ability to construct a public or semi public profile, second, the ability to identify the list of other users with whom a connection is shared, third, the ability to view and track individual connection as well as those made by others.
Use of Facebook depends on user’s gender, race, ethnicity and parental educational background, and women use Facebook more than men do (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). Extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience are the personality traits which were found central to social media use in previous research (Ross et al., 2009; Zywica & Danowski, 2008). People who are more open to experiences tend to be drawn to SNS, as are those with high levels of neuroticism (Correa, Hinsley & Zúñiga, 2010). A study showed that students spend most of their time in reading or viewing information on the site, without directly interacting in any way (Pempek, Yermolayeva & Calvert, 2009).
Literature Review
Experiential Marketing
Experiential consumption is considered to be discussed first time by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) in their article ‘The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feeling and Fun’. Later, Schmitt (1999) in his book Experiential Marketing compared traditional marketing’s product-oriented focus on functional features with experience marketing’s customer-oriented focus on experiences. He defined experiential marketing as ‘any form of customer-focused marketing activity that creates a connection to customers.’
Schmitt (1999) gave five types to experience marketing approaches and named it ‘Strategic Experiential Modules’: sense, feel, think, act and relate.
Online Behavior of Men and Women
Correa et al. (2010) examined whether the relationship between personality predictors and social media use differs by gender. Results of the study showed that extraverted men and women are both likely to be more frequent users of social media tools, but men with greater degree of emotional instability were more regular users. Colley and Maltby (2008) analysed the impact of Internet on men and women and found that women interpersonal orientation will influence their internet behaviour. Women in their study accounted for higher frequency of mention of using internet sites to make new friends, meet partners and renew old acquaintances. Lin and Lu (2011) in his study found that enjoyment was the most influential factor in people’s use of SNS, followed by number of peer and usefulness. They also found that the number of peers was an important factor influencing the continued intention to use for women, and not for men. Garbarino and Strahilevitz (2002) examined how men and women differ in both their perceptions of risks associated with shopping online and the effect of receiving a site recommendation from a friend. The results suggested that as compared to men, women will be more willing to buy online if recommended by a friend and also higher level of risk is perceived by women than men. Richard, Chebat, Yang and Putrevu (2010) while assessing the role of gender in online consumer behaviour found that men engage in less exploratory behaviour and develop less website involvement than women. They suggested creating websites with a lot of information presented in varied formats with many links to related topics for women. Whereas for males, simple and limited information with an overall summary and visual reinforcement of verbal information would be prudent. Kim et al. (2007) studied the gender differences within the context of online travel website functionality and content preferences as well as search behaviour. They found that women attach more value to the contents and functionalities of websites. Hasan (2010) studied gender differences across three attitudinal components: cognitive, affective and behavioural. They found that overall men’s cognitive, affective and behavioural online shopping attitudes are higher than those of women and suggested that online shopping might not be as attractive to men as women. Porter et al. (2012) found that in firm-sponsored virtual community, sponsor’s effort to provide quality content boosts trust within only men, while efforts to encourage action boosts trust within only women. Bae and Lee (2011) investigated the gender differences in perceiving and responding to online consumer reviews. Their study showed that females are more influenced by negative reviews than positive reviews as compared to men.
Research Gap
Since women’s usage of Internet has been more recent than that of men, there is no information available on experience (Colley & Maltby, 2008). Correa et al. (2010) found positive relationship between openness to experience and social media use. Most of the research works are done in the context of personality traits affecting the usage of SNS (Amichai-hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010; Correa et al., 2010; Moore & Mcelroy, 2012; Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012; Ross et al., 2009; Seidman, 2013). Therefore, gender difference in this area is still not much explored and needed to be studied.
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses are tested
H1: Perception of sense marketing does not significantly differ by gender H2: Perception of feel marketing does not significantly differ by gender H3: Perception of think marketing does not significantly differ by gender H4: Perception of act marketing does not significantly differ by gender H5: Perception of relate marketing does not significantly differ by gender
Research Methodology
Mixed method approach was adopted for the study. First part of the research deals with qualitative research which was done by literature review. The second part deals with quantitative research which was done with the help of survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was adopted from Chen and Lin (2015). Five-point Likert scale was used to measure the 27 items of the questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used for the study. A total of 250 set of questionnaires were distributed among the students of Aligarh Muslim University as students are the avid users of Internet. They were accessing Internet on laptop, mobile, tablets, etc. The software package SPSS version 21 was used for the analysis.
Research Results
Demographic Profile
Based on the survey, gender distribution was as follows: male (60.2%) and female (39.8%). A large proportion of respondents were of age group 21–30 years (81.4%) followed by the age under 20 (16.8%). Most of the interviewees were pursuing undergraduate courses (41.2%) followed by Ph.D. and other higher-level courses (32.7%) and postgraduate courses (24.8%). According to the survey data, the time spent online per day was as follows: 1–3 hours (42.9%), less than 1 hour (31.4%), more than 5 hours (13.7%) and 3–5 hours (11.9%).
Reliability Test
Cronbach’s alpha range of more than 0.70 was used as a guideline. Composite reliability of the ‘experiential marketing’ was found to be 0.795 which is above the minimum acceptable value.
Validity Test
Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on 27 items with orthogonal rotation (Varimax). The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measures of experiential marketing were found after omitting sense1 and feel1 statements (KMO = 0.795).
Hypotheses were tested using t-test. As indicated in Table 1, only the p-value of relate marketing is less than 0.05. Thus, H1, H2, H3 and H4 were accepted whereas H5, perception of relate marketing does not significantly differ by gender, was rejected (p = 0.028, t = 2.206). Furthermore, the table shows that men relate the experiences provided by the sites with them more than the women do.
Results of t-Test
Discussion
Earlier, it was assumed that offline characteristics of people would not be reflected in their online behaviour, but later researchers found that this was not the case, like with respect to gender identity (Hargittai, 2008). Females are different from males in the way they perceive and use other’s opinion for purchase decision (Bae & Lee, 2011). Result of the study shows that men and women’s perceptions of sensory, affective, cognitive and physical experiences are similar. Bae and Lee (2011) while studying the willingness to buy online do not find any difference between males and females. But when it comes to social identity experience, men are more likely to relate themselves with a reference group or culture than women. The level of readiness to relate with communities, cultures and a broader social system with the intention of self-improvement is higher in men than women. This could be interpreted that men are more likely to change their behaviour when it is visible to others as shown in previous studies (Melnyk & van Osselaer, 2012). Social networking sites are such platforms where the activities by an individual are done most of the time with the intention of showing it to others. Porter et al.’s (2012) study on virtual community showed that men tend to form strong attachment to the identity of the community and women tend to form common bonds at the individual relationship level. Therefore, when it comes to connect with the reference group or community or culture on Internet, men are more active than women. Another reason could be that men started using Internet just like most of the technologies earlier than women. Thus, men are more able to relate themselves with the social identity on Internet in SNS. This shows that gender differences on internet behaviour are becoming negligible, still females are different from males in perceiving and making decision online (Bae & Lee, 2011).
Suggestions
Data in our study contained limited range regarding age, profession and race, and thus, results cannot be generalized. Therefore, wide range of demographics would be able to represent a clearer picture of the SNS trends. Whether and how length of experience might influence perceptions of impact of Internet which can be further investigated.