picture from Internet
1、可扩展目标营销：贝叶斯分层模型的分布式马尔可夫链蒙特卡罗方法
市场营销和经济学中的许多问题都要求企业做出针对特定消费者的决策，但是当前的估算方法并不是针对现代数据集的规模而设计的。在此文中，作者提出了一种新的算法来弥补这一差距。他们开发了一种分布式马尔可夫链蒙特卡洛（MCMC）算法，用于在消费者数量非常大且感兴趣的对象是消费者级别参数时估计贝叶斯分层模型。两阶段并行算法在用户数上是渐近无偏的，保留了标准MCMC算法的灵活性，易于实现。作者表明，分布式MCMC算法比单机算法至少快一个数量级，并且效率更高。他们通过对多达1亿消费者的模拟和一个慈善组织的1,088,310个捐助者的数据来说明这种方法。与典型大小的数据集相比，将这种算法应用于大型现代数据集后，可以使额外捐款增加160万至460万美元。
Many problems in marketing and economics require firms to make targeted consumer-specific decisions, but current estimation methods are not designed to scale to the size of modern data sets. In this article, the authors propose a new algorithm to close that gap. They develop a distributed Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for estimating Bayesian hierarchical models when the number of consumers is very large and the objects of interest are the consumer-level parameters. The two-stage and embarrassingly parallel algorithm is asymptotically unbiased in the number of consumers, retains the flexibility of a standard MCMC algorithm, and is easy to implement. The authors show that the distributed MCMC algorithm is faster and more efficient than a single-machine algorithm by at least an order of magnitude. They illustrate the approach with simulations with up to 100 million consumers, and with data on 1,088,310 donors to a charitable organization. The algorithm enables an increase of between $1.6 million and $4.6 million in additional donations when applied to a large modern-size data set compared with a typical-size data set.
参考文献：Bumbaca F (Rico), Misra S, Rossi PE. Scalable Target Marketing: Distributed Markov Chain Monte Carlo for Bayesian Hierarchical Models. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):999-1018.
2、使用主题模型绘制购买路径
在收集信息以进行预期的购买决策时，消费者将搜索短语提交给在线搜索引擎。搜索词用他们自己的话语直接表达了消费者的需求，从而为营销经理提供了有价值的信息。解释消费者的搜索短语可以更好地了解他们的购买意图，这对于营销成功至关重要。在此文中，作者开发了一个集成模型，将嵌入在消费者搜索短语中的潜在主题与他们的网站访问和购买决策联系起来。该模型使用包含消费者提交的8,000多个搜索词组的独特数据集，识别出导致消费者访问公司网站的搜索潜在主题。与缺少来自消费者搜索短语的文本信息的模型，以启发式方法使用文本数据的模型以及基于潜在Dirichlet分配的模型相比，该模型可以更好地评估消费者在购买路径上的位置并获得更好的预测精读，进而大大增加公司的收入。作者还将讨论范围扩大到聚合商，关联网站以及接触到公司广告的消费者群体。营销经理可以使用此方法从消费者的搜索短语中提取结构化信息，以帮助他们推断消费者的潜在购买状态，从而提高营销效率。
In gathering information for an intended purchase decision, consumers submit search phrases to online search engines. These search phrases directly express the consumers’ needs in their own words and thus provide valuable information to marketing managers. Interpreting consumers’ search phrases renders a better understanding of their purchase intentions, which is critical for marketing success. In this article, the authors develop an integrated model to connect the latent topics embedded in consumers’ search phrases to their website visits and purchase decisions. Using a unique data set containing more than 8,000 search phrases submitted by consumers, the model identifies latent topics underlying the searches that led consumers to the firm’s website. Compared with a model lacking any textual information from consumers’ search phrases, a model using textual data in a heuristic approach, and a model based on the latent Dirichlet allocation, the proposed model provides a better evaluation of a consumer’s position on the path to purchase and achieves much better predictive accuracy, which could in turn substantially increase the firm’s revenue. The authors also extend the discussion to aggregators, affiliated websites, and segments of consumers who are exposed to the firm’s outbound ads. Marketing managers can use this method to extract structured information from consumers’ search phrases to facilitate their inference of consumers’ latent purchase states and thereby improve marketing efficiency.
参考文献：Li H (Alice), Ma L. Charting the Path to Purchase Using Topic Models. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1019-1036.
picture from Internet
3、你想去哪里吃饭？共同消费中偏好表达的不对称性
这项研究引入了一个消费者在制定联合消费决策时承担“请求者”或“响应者”的角色的框架。作者记录了一个强有力的偏好表达的不对称性，其中“请求者”征求他人的消费偏好（例如，“你想去哪里吃饭？”）希望偏好表达（例如“我们去这家餐厅”），而“响应者” 不要表达自己的偏好（例如“任何地方对我都可以”）。这种不对称现象在广泛的情况下普遍存在，并且是由于请求者和响应者的角色不同而发生的。与响应者相比，请求者更加专注于减轻决策的难度，而与请求者相比，响应者更加专注于通过表现出随和的态度传达喜好。因此，响应者的行为表现欠佳，从而产生了“偏好成本”（当掩盖偏好时）和“社会摩擦成本”（请求者青睐表达偏好的响应者）。请求者可以通过表达自己对决策的厌恶来引发偏好表达，这增加了响应者对减轻决策难度的关注。作者最后讨论了该框架对共同消费决策“幕后”的贡献。
This research introduces a framework wherein consumers take on “requestor” or “responder” roles in making joint consumption decisions. The authors document a robust preference expression asymmetry wherein “requestors” soliciting others’ consumption preferences (e.g., “Where do you want to go for dinner?”) desire preference expressions (e.g., “Let’s go to this restaurant”), whereas “responders” instead do not express preferences (e.g., “Anywhere is fine with me”). This asymmetry generalizes under a broad set of situations and occurs because the requestor and responder roles differ in their foci. Compared to responders, requestors are more focused on mitigating the difficulty of arriving at a decision, whereas compared to requestors, responders are more focused on conveying likability by appearing easygoing. Responders thus behave suboptimally, incurring a “preference cost” (when masking preferences) and a “social friction cost” (requestors favor responders who express preferences). Requestors can elicit preference expression by conveying their own dislike of decision making, which increases responders’ focus on mitigating decision difficulty. The authors conclude by discussing the framework’s contributions to looking “under the hood” of joint consumption decisions.
参考文献：Liu PJ, Min KE. Where Do You Want to Go for Dinner? A Preference Expression Asymmetry in Joint Consumption. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1037-1054.
4、商业街如何推动华尔街：客户满意度、卖空者和超额收益
尽管以前的研究已经建立了基于客户的指标和股票收益之间的直接联系，但是关于它们之间的关联性的中介研究尚不清楚。作者研究了由卖空者的交易行为所介导的客户满意度和超额股票收益的关联。利用2007年至2017年期间273家公司的季度数据，作者发现了卖空利率这一衡量卖空活动的指标介导了客户满意度和不满情绪对超额股票收益的影响。与客户满意度相比，客户不满意对卖空有更明显的影响。此外，客户满意度和不满意程度对于资本密集度较低及竞争强度较低的企业更具相关性。结果表明，客户满意度提高一个单位会导致超额收益增加0.56个百分点，而客户不满意度提高一个单位会导致超额收益减少1.34个百分点。
Although previous studies have established a direct link between customer-based metrics and stock returns, research is unclear on the mediated nature of their association. The authors examine the association of customer satisfaction and abnormal stock returns, as mediated by the trading behavior of short sellers. Using quarterly data from 273 firms over 2007–2017, the authors find that short interest—a measure of short seller activity—mediates the impact of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction on abnormal stock returns. Customer dissatisfaction has a more pronounced effect on short selling compared with customer satisfaction. In addition, customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction are more relevant for firms with low capital intensity and firms that face lower competitive intensity. The results show that a one-unit increase in customer satisfaction is associated with a .56 percentage point increase in abnormal returns, while a one-unit increase in customer dissatisfaction is associated with a 1.34 percentage point decrease in abnormal returns.
参考文献：Malshe A, Colicev A, Mittal V. How Main Street Drives Wall Street: Customer (Dis)satisfaction, Short Sellers, and Abnormal Returns. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1055-1075.
picture from Internet
5、开放式谈判：销售人员在前端的透明度带来的后端好处
由于买方可获得的信息量大，因此如今的谈判不太可能以信息不对称——即买方比卖方的信息量少——为特征。许多行业已经对这种变化做出了反应，将注意力转移到了在售后市场中获取利润：增加主要购买的产品和服务（例如附加产品、保险、融资、服务和维护）。在这些售后市场中，即使信息不对称从主采购中消除，企业也往往保持着信息优势。这就产生了一个以前的研究没有发现的有趣的背景：前端（主采购）的信息“对称”和后端（售后市场）的信息“不对称”。作者认为，前端的对称性提供了建立信任的机会，因为知识渊博的客户可以验证卖方披露的信息。在汽车行业的一项观察性研究中，作者发现，在谈判开始时销售人员向其透露汽车成本的客户在后端的支出明显高于其他客户。正如在后续研究中所证实的那样，只有在谈判开始时披露成本并且客户可以验证成本信息时，这种效果才成立。
Negotiations today are less likely to be characterized by information asymmetry—the notion that buyers are less informed than sellers—due to the amount of information available to buyers. A number of industries have reacted to this change by shifting their attention to earning profits in aftermarkets: products and services that augment the main purchase (e.g., add-ons, insurance, financing, service and maintenance). In these aftermarkets, firms often retain an information advantage, even if information asymmetries are eliminated from the main purchase. This has given rise to an interesting setting untapped by prior research: information “symmetry” in the front end (main purchase) and information “asymmetry” in the back end (aftermarket). The authors argue that symmetry in the front end provides an opportunity to build trust, as the knowledgeable customer can verify the information disclosed by the seller. In an observational study in the automotive industry, the authors find that customers to whom the salesperson revealed the cost of a car at the beginning of the negotiation spent significantly more in the back end than others. As corroborated in subsequent studies, this effect holds only when cost is disclosed at the beginning of the negotiation and when customers can verify the cost information.
参考文献：Atefi Y, Ahearne M, Hohenberg S, Hall Z, Zettelmeyer F. Open Negotiation: The Back-End Benefits of Salespeople’s Transparency in the Front End. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1076-1094.
6、具有默认值的消费者顺序选择中的偏好动态
此研究探讨在顺序决策环境下，默认值对产品选择的影响。先前的研究表明，默认值可以通过促进消费者选择预先设定的选项来影响消费者的购买行为，而当消费者做出一系列相关的选择时，默认值的影响更为微妙。在这种情况下，由于从一个选择到后续选择的“溢出”效应，消费者的偏好可能会随着选择的发展而变化。作者假设，默认设置会系统地削弱选择溢出的影响，因为接受默认设置比在存在默认设置时选择非默认选项，或在没有默认设置时进行选择更为被动。三个实验和一个现场研究为这种默认值导致的选择溢出效应的变化提供了有力证据。研究结果表明，企业为了影响消费者选择更昂贵的产品而设定的高价格默认值，可能会因溢出效应的减弱而适得其反。除了促进对违约和偏好动态之间相互作用的理解外，这项研究的见解对企业在顺序选择中应用默认值具有重要的实际意义。
This research examines the impact of defaults on product choice in sequential-decision settings. Whereas prior research has shown that a default can affect what consumers purchase by promoting choice of the preselected option, the influence of defaults is more nuanced when consumers make a series of related choices. In such a setting, consumer preferences may evolve across choices due to “spillover” effects from one choice to subsequent choices. The authors hypothesize that defaults systematically attenuate choice spillover effects because accepting a default is a more passive process than either choosing a nondefault option in the presence of a default or making a choice in the absence of a default. Three experiments and a field study provide compelling evidence for such default-induced changes in choice spillover effects. The findings show that firms’ setting of high-price defaults with the aim of influencing consumers to choose more expensive products can backfire through the attenuation of spillover. In addition to advancing the understanding of the interplay between defaults and preference dynamics, insights from this research have important practical implications for firms applying defaults in sequential choices.
参考文献：Donkers B, Dellaert BGC, Waisman RM, Häubl G. Preference Dynamics in Sequential Consumer Choice with Defaults. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1096-1112.
picture from Internet
7、多渠道销售系统的设计与治理：B2B市场的财务绩效影响
B2B市场中的多渠道销售系统在设计上有很大的差异，从而减弱或加剧了制造商与销售合作伙伴之间的代理冲突。基于多代理理论，作者引入直接和间接渠道的使用作为多渠道销售系统的重点设计维度，并使用匹配的制造商-销售伙伴数据集研究了每个渠道的绩效影响。在信息不对称和销售伙伴道德风险方面，直接渠道的使用主要降低了代理冲突，而间接渠道的使用增加了道德风险担忧。这些销售合作伙伴效应如何转化为制造商绩效结果在很大程度上取决于治理机制，从而确认了治理价值分析的预测：在使用间接渠道的情况下，形式化提高了制造商的绩效结果，但在使用直接渠道的情况下则降低了绩效结果。作者观察到集中和信息交换的逆向效应：集中和信息交换提高了直接渠道使用的结果，但减少了间接渠道使用的结果。对管理层的主要含义是，管理者必须使他们的多渠道销售系统的设计与有效的治理机制保持一致。
Multichannel sales systems in business-to-business markets vary substantially in their designs and thereby either attenuate or aggravate agency conflicts between manufacturers and sales partners. Drawing on multiple agency theory, the authors introduce direct and indirect channel usage as focal design dimensions of multichannel sales systems and investigate each channel’s performance effects using a matched manufacturer–sales partner data set. Whereas direct channel usage predominantly lowers agency conflicts in terms of information asymmetry and sales partner moral hazard, indirect channel usage amplifies moral hazard concerns. How those sales partner effects translate into manufacturer performance outcomes critically depends on governance mechanisms, confirming predictions from governance value analysis: formalization enhances performance outcomes for manufacturers in the case of indirect channel usage but diminishes performance in the case of direct channel usage. The authors observe converse effects for centralization and information exchange: centralization and information exchange enhance outcomes of direct channel usage but diminish outcomes of indirect channel usage. The focal managerial implication is that managers must align the design of their multichannel sales systems with effective governance mechanisms.
参考文献：Homburg C, Vomberg A, Muehlhaeuser S. Design and Governance of Multichannel Sales Systems: Financial Performance Consequences in Business-to-Business Markets. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1113-1134.
8、你的品牌应该“站队”吗？市场份额如何决定企业政治主张的影响
消费者越来越期待品牌在社会政治问题上“站队”，但管理者不愿意冒险疏远那些反对他们立场的顾客。此外，对基于身份的消费和消极偏见的研究表明，企业政治主张（CPA）更有可能劝退反对CPA的现有客户，而不是吸引支持CPA的新客户，这意味着即使总体上消费者的支持/反对比例平均，净效应也将是负面的。在这项研究中，作者认为尽管个人层面的选择存在消极偏见，但CPA在市场层面的净效应是由一个排序过程决定的。这个排序过程有利于市场份额小的品牌而损害市场份额大的品牌。这是因为市场份额小的品牌可以失去的顾客很少，而能获得的顾客却很多。这可以抵消掉消费者对CPA的身份驱动反应中的消极偏见的风险，从而使市场份额小的品牌的客户净流入。五个实验为这一理论提供了支持，并将真实性确定为小份额品牌受益的必要条件。
Consumers increasingly expect brands to “pick a side” on divisive sociopolitical issues, but managers are reluctant to risk alienating customers who oppose their position. Moreover, research on identity-based consumption and negativity bias suggests that corporate political advocacy (CPA) is more likely to repel existing customers who oppose the CPA than to attract new customers who support it, implying that the net effect will be negative even if consumers overall are evenly divided in their support/opposition. In this research, the authors posit that despite this negativity bias in individual-level choice, the net effect of CPA at the market level is determined by a sorting process that benefits small-share brands and hurts large-share brands. This is because having few customers to lose and many to gain can offset the risk of the negativity bias in consumers’ identity-driven responses to CPA, potentially leading to a net influx of customers for small-share brands. Five experiments provide support for this theorizing and identify authenticity as a necessary condition for small share brands to benefit.
参考文献：Hydock C, Paharia N, Blair S. Should Your Brand Pick a Side? How Market Share Determines the Impact of Corporate Political Advocacy. Journal of Marketing Research. 2020;57(6):1135-1151.
