Unveiling mechanism of SNSs addiction on wellbeing: the moderating role of loneliness and social anxiety

Journal Paper
AKHTAR Naeem, ISLAM Tahir, HAMEED Zahid, GHAFFAR Abdul, SHARMA Anshuman, KINCL Tomáš, ISLAM Fazila
Behaviour & Information Technology, https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2417390
Publication year: 2024

Social networking sites (SNSs) play a crucial role in the lives of online users. This research aims to investigate the underlying mechanisms of SNS addiction and its subsequent impact on the wellbeing of online users. Employing the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, we examine the influence of perceived enjoyment, utilitarian needs, and social influence on SNSs addiction and its associated consequences. Additionally, we consider the boundary conditions of loneliness as the predictors of SNSs addiction and social anxiety in the association between SNSs addiction and strain. We collected data (Time 1 and II) from 558 SNSs users using an online survey. By employing structural equation modelling via Smart PLS 4.0, our findings indicate that perceived enjoyment, utilitarian needs, and social influence significantly contribute to SNSs addiction. Furthermore, SNS addiction is positively correlated with strain, which positively triggers users’ wellbeing. We also found a significant positive moderating effect of loneliness and social anxiety on the proposed relationships. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of the theoretical foundations and multifaceted influences contributing to the literature on SNSs addiction and its impact on wellbeing through strain. It also acknowledges the study’s limitations and suggests directions for future research.

Influencer-driven loyalty: Understanding the mediating role of customer brand engagement in the relationship between social media influencers and brand loyalty

Journal Paper
AHMED Suhaib, GHAFFAR, Abdul, ZAHEER ZAIDI, Syed Shahid, ISLAM, Tahir, KHAN, Muhammad Mumtaz, ISLAM, Fazila, KINCL, Tomas & SHEIKH Altaf Ahmed
Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, Vol. 34, Iss. 2, pp. 207-230
Publication year: 2024

Factors developing brand loyalty through social media influencers (SMIs) are immensely important to academics and marketing practitioners since it is a remarkable driver of organizational success. This research investigates the impact of SMIs homophily in developing customer brand engagement (CBE) and its impact on BL. We collected valid data from 412 respondents using laptop brands in Pakistan and used structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the SMIs homophily is crucial in establishing CBE and BL. The results further show that CBE’s emotional and cognitive dimensions significantly mediate the relationship between SMIs homophily and BL. However, the emotional CBE has a stronger mediating impact on BL. The study provides valuable insights for brand managers to hire SMIs who resemble their fans to grab their loyalty toward the brand. This study unfolds new avenues in social media marketing, consumer behavior, and branding literature by understanding the association between SMIs homophily, CBE, and BL.

 

CSR Did Not Take Place: An Empirical Study Exploring Consumers Trapped in Paradoxes

Journal Paper
ŠIMŮNKOVÁ, Klára, KINCL, Tomáš, GUNINA, Daria
Corporate Reputation Review
Publication year: 2024

How consumers perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR) has shifted significantly over the past decades. Initially, a voluntary commitment to solving urgent social problems, CSR was once a source of competitive advantage, specific positioning, and exclusivity in customers’ eyes. Today, however, CSR has become a fundamental prerequisite for a company to function in society, a source of company legitimacy, expected and demanded by many stakeholder groups. As research demonstrates, young people in particular loudly and intensely declare their interest in today’s challenges and vigorously demand that the companies they buy from or work for participate in CSR. On the contrary, in everyday practice, we as scholars and educators have learned that CSR is more of an empty word for consumers, something that is right but of which they have no precise idea. CSR finds itself in a paradoxical situation. Therefore, our study aims to identify the main paradoxes in how millennials perceive CSR. First, it addresses the term paradox and its contextualization within the CSR discourse. Second, the three main paradoxes (authenticity/communication, legitimacy/trust, pay-off/non-pay-off) are outlined and verified through mixed methods research. The paradoxes are identified and confirmed through the ambivalent and inconsistent responses to a questionnaire and, subsequently, multiple focus groups. Finally, implications for the CSR concept are suggested. Furthermore, this paper questions the validity of instruments traditionally used to measure consumer attitudes (not only) in the field of CSR.

Consequences of TV morning show consumption among female muslim millennials in Pakistan during COVID-19: Based on the stress–strain model

Journal Paper
ISLAM Fazila, GHAFFAR Abdul, ISLAM Tahir, SHARMA Satish, KINCL Tomáš, HAMEED Zahid
Contemporary Islam, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-024-00569-6
Publication year: 2024

The primary aim of this research is to examine what makes millennial Muslim females more materialistic and less satisfied with their lives in Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic. In today’s world, investigating the underlying mechanism of the exponential increase in Muslim female materialism tendency is considered a worthwhile problem. Therefore, the current research develops a theoretical model based on the stress–strain model. It uses the framework to test the impact of morning TV show consumption on Muslim females’ life satisfaction, social consumption, and compulsiveness through the mediation of materialism in COVID-19. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used. The data was collected through the mall intercept survey method from 720 millennial Muslim females. During COVID-19, the study findings revealed that high viewing of morning TV shows appears to be a significant determinant that leads to high materialism, which results in highly negative outcomes (i.e., compulsive buying, social consumption, and less satisfaction). Moreover, the results found that materialism mediated the relationship between morning TV show consumption and three studied outcomes.

The role of service quality in enhancing brand authenticity through the moderation effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR)

Journal Paper
GHAFFAR, Abdul, ISLAM, Tahir, KINCL, Tomáš, HAKEEM, Abdul, SHARMA, Anshuman
Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, Vol. 33, Iss. :3, pp. 475-494
Publication year: 2023

This paper aims to examine the impact of service quality and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on brand authenticity and determine the moderating effects of CSR on the relationship between service quality and brand authenticity. Survey data was collected from 472 customers of Karachi, Pakistan’s four major medical diagnostic laboratories, through the convenience sampling technique. The quantitative method was used. To collect information from respondents, a self-administered questionnaire is used. We utilized the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to analyze data. The results show that CSR, service quality, and brand authenticity are related in medical diagnostic and research laboratories. Research findings indicate that service quality and CSR directly and positively impact brand authenticity. In addition, CSR moderates the effect between service quality and brand authenticity. Managers can see corporate social responsibility as an intangible value that goes along with high-quality services and makes medical diagnostic and research laboratory services more authentic.

A sustainable Retailer's journey to sustainable practices: Prioritizing the customer and the planet

Journal Paper
GHAFFAR, Abdul, ISLAM, Tahir, KHAN Huda, KINCL, Tomáš, SHARMA, Anshuman
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services Vol. 74, 103388, ISSN 0969-6989
Publication year: 2023

Rapidly increasing demand for eco-friendly products is evidence of consumers’ intention to make responsible purchases. As a result, companies and retailers are increasingly pressured to reconsider their product lines and provide environmentally friendly products in order to satisfy their customers’ demands. The current study aims to explore how sustainable retailers, sustainable product packaging, sustainable product availability, and lower price perception impact sustainable behavioral intention towards (SBI) sustainable consumption behavior (SCB). A survey in the form of a self-administered questionnaire was used to get information from millennials for this study. Smart Partial Least Square (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. This study’s sample was obtained using judgmental sampling, resulting in 297 valid responses. The results indicate that millennials are progressively adopting environmentally responsible consumption practices. The study found that sustainable retailers, sustainable product packaging, availability, and lower pricing perception contribute to sustainable behavior intentions. The findings indicate that promoting ecological practices and environmentally conscious consumers can assist developing nations in attaining sustainability and ecological stability.

Microbreweries in the Czech Republic: How does a connection to the local place influence marketing communication?

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, SLÁMA, Jiří, BYSTŘICKÝ, Václav, BŘEZINOVÁ, Monika, & STEJSKALOVÁ, Irena
DETUROPE - The Central European Journal of Regional Development and Tourism 2022, 14(2):45-61
Publication year: 2022

Place-based brands emphasize local identity through connection to the local place where they realize their business. The marketing strategy that emphasizes local attributes to strengthen the local identity is called neolocalism. A strategy in which companies closely linked to their place of business use elements of neolocalism in their communication has become common in recent years and is typical for microbreweries. This article aims to answer the question if there are differences in marketing communication mixes of microbreweries having their own local points of sale, and if the location of that local point of sale (i.e., in the center of the town, in suburban areas, or outside the town) influences which communication tools the microbreweries prefer in their marketing communication mix. We performed a quantitative survey to identify the prevailing marketing communication mix tools used by microbreweries in the Czech Republic. The results confirmed that microbreweries with their own local points of sale utilize different marketing mix components; to varying degrees, they use ATL/BTL communication tools and a varied mix of ON-LINE vs. OFF-LINE communication tools. Similarly, the location of the point of sale further influences the components of the marketing communication mix; microbreweries use a varied mix of ON-LINE vs. OFF-LINE communication tools and without any difference in using of ATL/BTL communication tools.

Eye-tracking study on product placement familiarity in online games in streaming platforms: visual attention, recognition and recall

Journal Paper
PAŠTIKOVÁ, Alice, KINCL, Tomáš, BAŽANTOVÁ, Simona
Economics Management Innovation, Vol. 13, Iss. 3, ISSN 1804-1299, p. 18-36
Publication year: 2021

The growing popularity of streams and video games is creating new marketing opportunities. Therefore, this paper examines the relationship of product placement (PP) familiarity to visual attention, recognition and recall in streaming video. The experiment has three sources of data gathering – eye-tracking (AOI), questionnaires with Likert scales and semi-structured interviews. The participants were chosen according to the largest group – males aged between 20-25 years old. The results indicated better-unaided recall of familiar placement although the aided recall was found to be similar, as visual attention. The visual attention for other factors differs for PP size and the respondents’ experiences. The order of PP did not affect the visual metrics. Interviews complemented a picture of how and why respondents consume video games and streams and how mediums differ. Marketing opportunities could be seen in the growing video games industry and streaming platforms. However, some product placement might be more suitable to be implemented than others.

Born digital: Is there going to be a new culture of digital natives?

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, ŠTRACH, Pavel
Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, Vol. 31, Iss. 1, ISSN 2163-9159, p. 30-48
Publication year: 2021

The paper strives to answer the question of whether Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants share similar concerns with other generations across national cultures. A traditional cross-cultural approach is scrutinized to unravel the extent to which technology has influenced and co-created the digital culture, which may emerge as a distinct sub-culture.

This analysis is based on Mindreader Mindshare survey from more than 57,000 respondents from in 44 different countries. The cross-tabulation analysis was performed to investigate the differences in the respondents’ strongest concerns. The analysis revealed differences between the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program’s cultural clusters, as well as between both generations of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Both generations of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants appear to share relatively homogeneous concerns, and therefore sharing the same digital culture regardless of the GLOBE cultural cluster to which they belong.

Golf courses in the Czech Republic: Analysis of the development and socio-economic characteristics

Journal Paper
SLÁMA, Jiří, STEJSKALOVÁ, Irena, KINCL, Tomáš, BYSTŘICKÝ, Václav, KVÍTEK, Tomáš, FIALOVÁ, Dana, ŠTYCH, Přemysl
Land Use Policy, Vol. 99, ISSN: 0264-8377
Publication year: 2020

This paper aims to analyze selected socio-economic aspects of golf courses (GC[s]) in the Czech Republic (CR). The analysis strives to determine what aspects affect the development and dynamics of the golf market. The analysis revealed that the construction and development of the GCs are related to the socio[HYPHEN]economic type of territory. Most GCs are built in the developed areas (65), followed by a stabilized area (44), while only three GCs lie in peripheral areas. The GCs differ in the variety of services provided to the players. Based on the cluster analysis, The GCs fall into three various groups, where the first cluster comprises standard playgrounds, whereas the third cluster includes rather luxurious properties, which is also reflected in the quality and variety of the services provided. The subsequent economic analysis unfolded that the costs exceeded revenues for approximately 60% of the analyzed GCs resulting in a negative economic result. The loss per hectare (ha) is up to -0.5 million CZK, and for those GCs that are profitable, these gains are only in the tens of thousands CZK. Moreover, the equity of GCs ranges from thousands (at least 1) through hundreds of thousands to millions of CZK (maximum 1.5-2.5). It seems that the motives of the holdings of the GCs are of a different character, i.e., not only financially, but also of a specific nature (owner prestige, depositing money into the assets, other uses of the acquired property and pursuing a sporting interest as a hobby). Although the paper focuses on the Czech GCs, the results could be generalized as the CR golf market is similar to other countries (i.e., saturated, stagnating membership base, low operating profitability, sustainability issues). The conclusions are beneficial not only for GCs owners or managers but also for researches concerned with socio-economic aspects of GC’s construction, development, sustainability, and management.

Improving Sentiment Analysis Performance on Morphologically Rich Languages: Language and Domain Independent Approach

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, NOVÁK, Michal, PŘIBIL, Jiří
Computer Speech & Language, Vol. 56, p. 36-51 ISSN: 0885-2308
Publication year: 2019

Sentiment analysis has become a phenomenon with the proliferation of social media and the popularity of opinion-rich resources such as online reviews and blogs. Even though significant advances have been achieved in this field, there are still some major challenges to be addressed – i.e. sentiment analysis in multiple languages or thematic domains. Only a few studies have focused on minor or morphologically rich languages. Moreover, it is a question of whether the results of sentiment analysis could be further improved by incorporating the surrounding context (local or chronological) of the analyzed document. This paper presents a language- and domain-independent sentiment analysis model based on character n-grams which improves the classifiers performance by utilizing surrounding context.

Four experiments on various datasets were conducted in order to validate the model. The datasets included a reference corpus containing movie reviews in English, movie reviews in the Czech language, the bestselling Amazon book of 2012 Fifty Shades of Grey novel reviews dataset from three Amazon language mutations (English, German, and French), another reference corpus containing Amazon reviews in multiple languages (German, French, and Japanese), and a multi-domain dataset (movies, books, and product categories ranging from electronics and home appliances to sports gear and supplies for hobbies and pets).

The experiments confirmed the approach of incorporating the surrounding context in order to be effective for datasets from various languages and domains, suggesting a strong performance of a character n-gram based model for multi-domain and language datasets as well. A simple all-in-one classifier, which uses a mixture of labeled data from multiple languages (or domains) to train a sentiment classification model, may rival more sophisticated domain/language adaptation techniques. Such an approach reflects the needs of companies – with the interconnectedness of today’s world, most companies operate across multiple markets and would find it difficult to obtain a specific sentiment analysis solution for each market they serve.

Reklama na českém trhu: Analýza souvislosti mezi emocionálními apely a barvami

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, GUNINA, Daria, ŠULDOVÁ, Sabina
Logos Polytechnikos [online]. 2018, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, p. 36–48. ISSN 1804-3682.
Publication year: 2018

Odezvu spotřebitele na reklamu ovlivňuje celá řada aspektů. Mezi nejvýznamnější se řadí užité barvy a emocionální apely. Využití barev a emocionálních apelů se přitom může lišit v závislosti na tom, do kterého odvětví či produktové skupiny nabízený produkt/ služba patří. Stejně tak lze k podpoře různých emocionálních apelů využít odlišných barevných schémat. V rámci tohoto výzkumu
je analyzován výzkumný vzorek reklamních spotů vysílaných v České republice v roce 2016. Výzkumný vzorek zahrnuje 200 reklamních spotů na základě náhodného stratifikovaného výběru, kde stratami jsou v tomto smyslu produktové kategorie NACE, které reprezentují 90 % všech odvysílaných reklam. Hlavním cílem tohoto výzkumu je analyzovat využití emocionálních apelů v televizní reklamě, dílčím cílem je dále prozkoumat závislost využití barev pro vyjádření různých emocionálních apelů.  Výsledky indikují, že existují statisticky významné rozdíly ve využití emocionálních
apelů v reklamách inzerujících produkty náležející do různých produktových kategorií. U kategorie potravin a nápojů jsou častěji využity apely jako humor a vřelost, více než v jiných produktových kategoriích jsou ale také zastoupeny informativní reklamní spoty, které emocionálních apelů nevyužívají vůbec. U kategorie dalšího zpracovatelského průmyslu jsou významně více využívány apely jako humor a strach, naopak mnohem méně je využíváno apelu erotiky. Peněžnictví a pojišťovnictví často užívá v reklamních spotech humoru, překvapivě v oblasti kultury jsou významně zastoupeny reklamy, které sází na jiné techniky než využití emocionálních apelů. Statisticky významné rozdíly byly nalezeny i ve využití barev k vyjádření různých emocionálních apelů. Barvami
erotiky jsou černá a červená, strach bývá vyjádřen za přítomnosti rovněž červené, ale také bílé a zelené barvy. Pro vyjádření humoru se používá překvapivě šedivá barva, dále pak červená, fialová či
bílá. Vřelost bývá vyjadřována zemitou hnědou, ale také růžovou, či překvapivě šedivou.

Mass Media Communication & Companies’ Market Position: The Case of Czech Mortgage Market

Journal Paper
GUNINA, Daria, NOVÁK, Michal, KINCL, Tomáš, KOMÁRKOVÁ, Lenka
Acta Oeconomica Pragensia [online]. 2018, Vol. 26, Iss. 2, p. 41–55
Publication year: 2018

The study analyses mass media communication by mortgage lenders in the Czech market and builds on Kotler’s competitive strategies concept and aims to answer the question of whether there is a relationship between the mortgage lenders’ market position and their mass media communication profile. Furthermore, it analyses the mass media communication of mortgage lenders according to their financial performance. The analysis utilizes complete monitoring data from the mass media market in the Czech Republic. As a result of this study, the different advertising patterns of the market leaders and challengers on a highly commoditised market are shown. Market leaders do not utilise defensive strategies to protect their market shares but employ more offensive strategies to increase the size of the market. Market challengers have no resources to implement a massive and offensive communication strategy to challenge the market leaders.
Such a conclusion contributes to the debate on communication strategies for distinct types of companies according to their position on the market and their market share.

Managerial Planning: How Scheduling Influences TV Advertising Effectiveness

Journal Paper
GUNINA, Daria, BÍNA, Vladislav, KINCL, Tomáš
Economy and Market Communication Review. 2018. Vol. 8, Iss. 2, p. 188–200. ISSN 2232- 8823.
Publication year: 2018

The purpose of this research is to analyze the scheduling factors and their influence on TV advertising effectiveness. We deployed a quantitative approach based on a complete data set of advertisements aired on Czech TV in 2016 and 2017 for constructing a regression model. In contrast to several previous studies, our findings indicate that most analyzed variables have only a negligible influence (length of the spot, length of the break, number of spots, position in the break, category, a day of the week, week, year, and interaction of week and year) on TV advertising exposure, while only the type of programme, daypart and TV channel show a relevant impact on advertising exposure.

Gender Differences in Online Customer Satisfaction: The Asymmetric and Nonlinear Effect

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, ŠTRACH, Pavel
Services Marketing Quarterly. 2018, Vol. 39, Iss. 3, p. 157–174. ISSN 1533-2969. DOI: 10.1080/15332969.2018.1471954.
Publication year: 2018

The article aims to determine the extent of gender-related differences in user satisfaction with websites with a focus on the asymmetric and nonlinear effects of customer satisfaction. An experiment was conducted with 15 men and 15 women who undertook a typical task (scenario) on 44 websites. Overall, 1,320 evaluations of website quality attributes were obtained and analyzed. The results reveal that men and women differ in their website quality assessment. Marketing professionals should consider their target audience’s gender when designing a quality website, or even devise ways of approaching both gender groups through distinct means.

Usage of colors in TV commercials: cross-industry analysis of mass media communications

Journal Paper
GUNINA, Daria, KINCL, Tomáš, ŠULDOVÁ, Sabina
Communications [online]. 2017, Vol. 19, Iss. 4, p. 64–71. ISSN 1335-4205
Publication year: 2017

The aim of this study is to analyze the differences in color schemes in TV commercials across different product categories. The study answers the question of whether advertisers in different industries use specific color schemes to promote their company or products in TV commercials and if they follow the general recommendations for using colors in marketing communications. The research sample consists of 200 video adverts proportionally representing the commercials aired in six major product categories in the Czech Republic in 2016. The results indicate there is no statistically significant difference in the usage of colors between the product categories. Nevertheless, the advertisers in the Czech Republic generally follow the color scheme recommendations suggested by the theory.

Reklamní trh v ČR: analýza mediální proliferace

Journal Paper
GUNINA, Daria, KINCL, Tomáš
Logos Polytechnikos [online]. 2017, Vol. 8, Iss. 3, p. 27–43. ISSN 1804-3682.
Publication year: 2017

Článek analyzuje vliv proliferace médií na vývoj reklamního trhu v masmédiích v ČR v letech 2010–2016. Pro naplnění cílů je využito dat z kompletního monitoringu českého reklamního prostoru a deskriptivní analýza pracuje s ukazateli: celkový počet mediálních kanálů v rámci mediatypu, celkový počet a celkový objem reklamních sdělení v rámci mediatypu, celkový počet a celkový objem reklamních sdělení v rámci mediatypu, suma investic do reklamního prostoru v rámci mediatypu, průměrné investice na jednom kanálu, průměrná cena za jedno reklamní sdělení a průměrná cena za sekundu reklamního prostoru (pro TV a rozhlas).
Výsledky ukazují, že jednotlivá masmédia reagují na proliferaci odlišně. U televize krátkodobě došlo k propadu a rozmělnění poptávky mezi narůstající počet nových kanálů. V delším období ale počet reklam rostl více než dvojnásobně v porovnání s celkovým dostupným reklamním prostorem, za současného snižování ceny reklamního prostoru. U rádia se prostor nabízený českými stanicemi příliš nezměnil, přesto objem reklam vzrostl o čtvrtinu. Cena reklamního prostoru kolísala, suma investic do reklamy však vykazovala stabilní rostoucí trend. V oblasti tisku i přes masivní nárůst počtu titulů došlo k propadu poptávky po reklamním prostoru. Vydavatelé se propad snažili kompenzovat zejména nárůstem ceny reklamního prostoru. Proliferace masmediálního trhu byla pozitivním jevem zejména pro inzerenty a projevila se zejména vyšší přístupností reklamního trhu. Rovněž vedla k narovnání trhu a ke zmenšení rozdílů mezi jednotlivými poskytovateli reklamního prostoru.

Industry analysis of TV commercials: Do companies reflect audience profiles?

Journal Paper
NOVÁK, Michal, KINCL, Tomáš, LUŠTICKÝ, Martin
Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, Vol. 17, Iss. 3, p. 187–200. ISSN 1746-0166
Publication year: 2016

The purpose of the article is to explore one of the Cental and East European media markets to determine whether different audience profiles reflect the various industry structures of the commercials aired. The article is based on data from a complete television (TV) commercials data set (n=2,303,435) from 2013. The results indicate that there are only minor differences between TV channels while audience targeting is only implemented by a very few thematic channels. The article contributes to media marketing management research by showing that the differences in the distribution of commercials among different TV channels are smaller than expected.

What opinions are floating around the internet? Analyzing customer sentiment

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš
Marketing Science & Inspirations. Univerzita Komenského v Bratislavě, 2013 Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 53–55. ISSN 1338-7944
Publication year: 2013

Sentiment analysis and opinion mining seems to be a hot topic these days. Together with the spontaneous and massive expansion of new media (esp. social networks) this issue is being perceived as one of the major trends for the nearest future. Google Trends (a tool showing how often a particular search-term has been entered across various regions of the world and in various languages) reports a fivefold increase of search queries since 2007. However opinion mining and sentiment analysis are not only a recent phenomenon related to the development of information technology. A long time before the World Wide Web was born, our attitudes or (consumer’s) decisions had been influenced by our relatives or friends around us. As we specialize and narrow our focus, the more frequently we need additional information about certain fields. Thus we have been looking for specialists or professionals with (life) experience who are able to share their opinion or advice. A car enthusiast whom we know could recommend a mechanic or a garage, a respectable person we appreciate could help us with the decision for whom to vote in the local election, or a colleague might provide a reference about a job applicant we would like to hire for our company.

Before the mass media has evolved, people were able to receive an input from just limited surrounding. This neighborhood was more likely limited to the geographical area where the individual lived and to the community they belonged to. As the TV and radio became widespread, the range of people who could influence public meaning greatly expanded. The distance is no longer a barrier and audiences can be approached in many ways. Persons speaking to the audience through the broadcast became strong opinion makers influencing and changing public attitudes and beliefs. Besides the crème de la crème of world politics (i.e. Barack Obama, Mario Monti, Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton) and CEOs of the largest companies (i.e. Tim Cook from Apple, Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook or Virginia Rometty from IBM) the Time Magazine’s List of The World’s 100 Most Influential People from 2012 also includes sport players (Jeremy Lin, Novak Djokovic, or Lionel Messi) artists (Rihanna, Adele) or even famous Chefs (Jose Andres). Many of those ”celebrities” do influence masses in the areas far beyond their expertise.

The online environment made it further possible to find out what others are thinking or experiencing, no matter if those are our personal contacts or well know professionals. In 2008, Pew Internet & American Life Project Report discovered that more than 80 percent of US internet users have previously done dome online research about a product. Twenty percent do so commonly. More than 75 % of online-hooked customers confirm that reviews have a significant influence on their purchase and they are willing to pay more for a product with better customer reviews. In addition, one third of users has posted an online review or rating regarding a product or service and thus became an influencer themselves.

Therefore continuous and systematic new media monitoring became an integral part of company processes. The aim of such activities is to recognize whether and (if so) in which context the media speaks about the company, hence companies can adjust their strategies and react in advance according to public opinions or attitudes. George Washington, the first President of the US, at the end of 18th century, monitored newspapers to monitor attitudes of his fellow citizens and what they were saying about him. Many of his successors also analyzed their media picture and 19th century witnessed an explosion of new companies scanning the media and cutting out news, providing the reports to government institutions, companies or individuals.

First press cutting (called “clipping” in the US) services retrieved information from media manually. They employed human readers to scan newspapers and look for keywords of (multiple) clients. Even if such services served only to a limited geographic area (mostly just one country) and monitored the media in just one single language, the human readers typically missed one third of articles containing keywords (as a result of not reading thoroughly but only fast scanning the articles). In the 1950s companies started to monitor TV broadcasts. Again, contracted personnel watched all programs and monitored broadcasted contents for keywords. With the introduction of Betamax and VHS technology, the monitoring process enabled recording and post-processing. Moreover, first automated speech-to-text systems have been developed, although they were still only 70–80 % complete and accurate.

The introduction of World Wide Web in 1990s brought revolutionary changes on the media market. Almost all media are now digitalized and available online. New monitoring companies offer a computer-based processing where country borders or national languages do not matter anymore. CyberAlert – the world press clipping service – monitors 55 000+ online news sources in 250+ national languages 24 hours a day. New websites spontaneously emerge, change and disappear every day. A common user is not only a web content consumer, but also contributes as an author. We write product reviews, post comments in discussion forums or on social networks or even have our personal online blogs. Such fragmented and unofficial information is a significant source of word-of-mouth or “buzz” about companies and products. Many of today’s most influential blogs (i.e. The Huffington Post, Techcrunch, Engadget, Mashable) began just few years ago as one-man-show, quickly growing into internationally recognized and respected media.

Media monitoring has rapidly changed. Recognizing sentiment and finding out about people’s attitudes still remains a challenge. However, utilizing sentiment analysis, companies can gain advantage from the insight in (social) media, recognize company or product reputation or develop a new marketing strategy addressing the negative sentiment and positively impacting on consumer’s perception. Moreover, top influencers and opinion makers can be identified. Sentiment analysis may be also useful in other domains for predicting the result of (presidential) election or pointing a virtual finger at the next American Idol.

Old-fashioned press cutting services just monitored the media and did not supply any interpretation of the outputs provided. Even these days when the data are collected automatically, companies mostly interpret them manually. Such a random approach is then susceptible to subjective error and is dependent on the experience and skills of the persons performing the analysis. Nevertheless, computer-based processing and modeling allows for automated sentiment analysis. Automated systems are repeatedly able to determine the sentiment (whether positive or negative) with 70–80 % accuracy. If automated systems were absolutely correct about sentiment classification, humans would still disagree with the results about 20 % of the time which is in no contrast to the level of agreement between raters they reached in human-rated analyses.

Automated sentiment analysis became an integral part of market research activities in companies such as Kia Motors, Best Buy, Deutsche Bank, Southwest Airlines or Paramount Pictures. Although the analysis cannot provide a hundred percent certainty, it can definitely offer important insights. It could be used to gain understanding of customer experience, recognize competitive dangers or discover emerging market opportunities. Opinions floating around the cyberspace begin to represent vox populi to the degree, in which most market segments participate in online discussions. Automated sentiment analysis might be a good way how to deal with cluttered online environment and how to get insight into the mind of a new millennial consumer.

Cultural differences in online beer marketing: findings from automated attention analysis

Journal Paper
KINCL, Tomáš, ŠTRACH, Pavel
Behaviour & Information Technology, 2013, Vol. 32, Iss. 7, p. 644–654. ISSN 0144-929X
Publication year: 2013

The impact of culture on consumer behaviour has been an important research area for decades. The rise of e-commerce prompted the importance of culturally bound differences between websites. Web designers are compelled to adjust website development to the cultural characteristics of the target audience and to reflect local perspectives. The actual target users are often invited to provide valuable feedback on e-commerce applications. However, user tests are extremely costly and time consuming. Tools for automated web design assessment have only recently been introduced and have provoked debate regarding their ability to simulate human interaction. In this article, 40 leading beer-brand-related websites from four different groups (countries) are analysed. The aim of this study is to discover if automated tools predicting user eye activity are able to distinguish between websites from different cultures. The findings indicate that automated tools provide quick and inexpensive results for initial assessment of the website interface, clearly differentiating between websites from different cultural backgrounds, resonating with the current literature.