International Journal of Market Research

Maintaining participant engagement in longitudinal surveys has been a key focus of survey research, and has implications for the quality of response and cost of administration. This paper presents new research measuring the impact of the design of between-wave keeping-in-touch mailings on response to the mailing and subsequent wave of a longitudinal survey. Three design attributes of the mailings were randomly implemented: the form of response request (whether respondents were asked to respond only if their address had changed, or in all cases to confirm or update their address); the newsletter included with the mailing (contrasting a newsletter with content tailored to respondent characteristics with a general newsletter and no newsletter); and the outgoing postage used (stamped or franked). The experiments were fielded on a new longitudinal study, the English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Panel Survey (CSJPS), and took place between waves one and two. Fieldwork for both waves was conducted by Ipsos MORI face-to-face interviewers. Our main finding was that the tailored newsletter was associated with a significant increase in the wave-two response rate. However, in relation to response to the request, the tailored newsletter, or sending no newsletter at all, were equally effective at inducing response, and significantly better than the general newsletter. We also found that, in relation to the form of request, the ‘change of address’ request was as effective as the more costly ‘confirmation’ request. Findings are discussed with reference to the design of keeping-in-touch mailings for longitudinal surveys.

Establishing contact with the sample units is an important part of the survey response process, and an efficient calling schedule is critical to achieve high response rates. The rapid increase in mobile phone ownership has triggered the interest of marketing researchers in the use of mobile phones for collecting survey data about consumers. Mobile phone surveys may favour establishing contact with sample units since the mobile phone is a personal device carried at all times, thus making the person permanently contactable. This paper aims to identify the best times to call in a mobile phone survey by investigating the influence of the day and time of the call on the likelihood of establishing contact and obtaining an interview. A three-level ranking of calling periods, based on call efficiency, is proposed. Outcomes also revealed that the level of efficiency of calling periods is not dissociated from respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics, namely in terms of age and region of residence.

Recently, the concept of value co-creation has gained popularity as it embraces customer and operant resources into the entire value-creation process, thereby overcoming the gaps of conventional marketing. In the last decade, literature of value co-creation gave multiple definitions to clarify the concept. The overlapping definitions became a source of confusion to both academics and practitioners. Realizing this need, a detailed structured literature review was undertaken and using a thematic content analysis, 27 elements of co-creation were identified. These elements were further classified into five pillars, namely: process environment, resource, co-production, perceived benefits and management structure. The paper presents a conceptualization of value co-creation by developing a framework that integrates five categories. This research is limited to the selected articles published on value co-creation in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Consumer-brand engagement (CBE) is a priority in the current marketing agenda. However, there is still a lack of empirically based studies appraising its essence. Hence our study is aimed at investigating the distinctive characteristics and the development phases of CBE. Our study adopted Grounded Theory methodology. Data were collected throughout semi-structured interviews on a theoretical sample of 41 Italian consumers of both genders, aged between 18 and 35, all having a favourite brand belonging to different market sectors. The evidence allowed us to build a conceptual framework of the CBE construct and of its development. This framework highlights that a brand is perceived by consumers as engaging when it is emotionally lived as a ‘life mate’. Furthermore CBE emerges as a dynamic process that evolves in three progressive relational phases: friendship, intimacy and symbiosis. Hence, to engage consumers, brands should get into their life, activating them both emotionally and physically, and establishing with them a deep and authentic relationship that gets increasingly intimate, private and exclusive over time. To achieve this goal, marketers should carry out a brand strategy based on brand personification, value-based affinity and affective bonding with consumers. The original value of our study lies in that it has been designed to anchor a new marketing concept such as CBE in the deep understanding of consumers’ meaning-making processes and relationship stories with a brand to get a comprehensive picture of the construct and how it develops that may better orientate current and future marketing practice.

Brand equity and customer equity, respectively, constitute the value provided by brand and customer portfolios to companies. These are metrics of marketing performance in the long term, as well as key factors in firm valuation processes. However, their relation has not been empirically analysed to date. This study explores the connection between brand equity and customer equity. We employ a simultaneous equations model in which brand equity and customer equity depend on each other and also on marketing expenditures. We find that these metrics partially overlap, particularly in some industries. Hence, our results highlight the importance of implementing models that consider the interaction between them in order to obtain reliable measurements of the overall productivity of marketing actions. Additionally, our results suggest that the value of brands and customer portfolios should be jointly measured so as to obtain trustworthy assessments of firm value.