Tobias Schaefers

To preview digital content and arouse consumers' interest, online providers often use short teasers designed in an unfinished form, such that the teaser begins a new sentence but does not finish it. These teasers aim to create curiosity and trigger consumption of the advertised content. However, we reveal that consumers' reactions to unfinished teasers are not always positive. The results from a qualitative pilot study and five experimental studies show that consumers react negatively to unfinished teasers for paid content, as demonstrated by reduced purchases. This effect reverses for free content, in that unfinished teasers lead to more consumption. We explain this reversal by showing that the barrier associated with paid content (i.e., the payment requirement) activates consumers' persuasion knowledge and suppresses any positive curiosity‐induced effects, which does not occur when content is available for free. These findings offer novel insights into the complexity of consumers' reactions to prevalent advertising techniques designed to promote content consumption in digital marketplaces.

Consumers frequently use mobile phones in a store to search for external information as an alternative to consulting with frontline employees. Mobile phone usage is especially prevalent among young consumers. Drawing on qualitative study results and existing literature, we conceptualize the effects of different in‐store information sources on choice overload, responsibility, and confidence among young consumers, as well as the moderating role of product category knowledge. A field experiment suggests that when knowledge is low, consulting with frontline employees (vs. mobile phone) leads to lower choice overload and, consequently, increases choice confidence. When knowledge is high, these beneficial effects are attenuated. At the same time, young consumers perceive greater choice responsibility when their phone is the information source; however, this does not influence choice confidence. This work contributes to extant literature by extending the knowledge of customer experience at the point of sale, the role of technology usage in in‐store retailing, and the role of frontline employees as an information source. It also provides managerial implications for retailers by highlighting the importance of providing an opportunity for an in‐person frontline employee interaction especially when customers have low product category knowledge.

The sharing economy provides short‐term access to products without the risks associated with ownership. While extant research primarily examined it in the context of affluent consumer segments, the sharing economy may offer opportunities for consumers at the base of the economic pyramid, where ownership risks prevent access to products that could create societal benefits. Drawing from risk perception theory, we examine how access‐based services, as an alternative to ownership, can mitigate perceived risk dimensions. An experimental study reveals that, in contrast to consumers with higher income, low‐income consumers perceive access‐based services to entail less financial risk, resulting in a greater inclination to access a good than to own it. In a second study, we explore these differences by comparing access with a risk mitigation strategy. We find that at the base of the pyramid, access is perceived to entail less financial risk than both ownership and ownership with a warranty. The results indicate the importance of the sharing economy for addressing the limited availability of resources for alleviating poverty. Based on our findings, we derive implications for consumers and service providers at the base of the pyramid, and discuss how the COVID‐19 pandemic may be detrimental to the identified opportunities.

Although prior research examined sponsorship announcements, differences in abstraction and when sponsorships are announced have been neglected. Based on Construal Level Theory, the effects of sponsorship announcement informativeness (abstract/concrete), personal level of construal (PLC; high/low), and temporal distance (proximate/distant) are investigated here in two experiments. Contrary to previous advertising research, results show that matching announcement informativeness with associated construal level or temporal distance is suboptimal. Instead, sponsors and sponsored properties should provide concrete informativeness regardless of temporal distance or consumers’ PLC. Concrete informativeness enhances attitude and purchase intent for consumers with high PLC and for distant events.

Two experimental studies reveal that customers’ reactions to different levels of recovery compensation differ between a recovery that occurs at the group level (such that every customer knows that every other affected customer receives the same compensation) and one that occurs at the individual level (such that the individual does not know whether and how much compensation other affected customers receive). In both cases, recovery compensation exhibits diminishing returns on compensation size in terms of recovery satisfaction. However, at the group level, the rate at which the returns on compensation diminish is greater and satisfaction reaches a plateau at lower compensation levels than at the individual level. The salient social comparison made during a group service recovery (GSR), as evidenced by the mediating role of distributive justice, explains these effects. Finally, we note that at midrange compensation levels, GSR and individual service recovery did not lead to different levels of recovery satisfaction, suggesting a zone of tolerance or indifference at these levels. Further, our findings yield important managerial implications for the efficient allocation of service recovery resources after a group service failure.

One key challenge for consumers at the base of the pyramid (BoP) is access to products that could transform their livelihood, leading to nonconsumption as the dominant pattern. Previous studies have claimed that nonconsumption could be addressed with services offering access to goods without ownership. Drawing on expected utility theory, we conduct two experimental studies in rural India that provide the first empirical support for the idea that the availability of access-based services reduces nonconsumption at the BoP. Additionally, we show that this effect is explained by BoP consumers’ expected utility assessment as reflected in their perception of access being more affordable and entailing less financial risk than ownership. We also demonstrate that access temporality, an important configurational variable for access-based service providers, affects the degree to which nonconsumption can be decreased. Compared to short-term access, BoP consumers perceive long-term access to be too similar to ownership in terms of affordability and financial risk, which causes them to refrain from purchasing. Overall, the results suggest that access-based services represent a viable alternative for addressing nonconsumption at the BoP. However, service providers should be aware that short-term access is required to gain acceptance among BoP consumers.