Browsing by Subject "consumer behavior"
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Item Analysis of Brand Recognition Associated with the Texas SuperstarTM and Earth-KindTM Programs in Texas(2010-10-12) Collart Dinarte, Alba Jeanette.The environmental horticulture industry, also known as the ?Green Industry?, is the second most important sector in the United States? agricultural economy in terms of economic output and one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture; however, it has experienced a steady slowdown in growth in the past years. Floriculture and nursery crops average annual growth rate decreased from 13.64% in the 1970s to approximately 2.87% in the 2000s, and the industry is currently considered to be facing a mature market. The Texas A&M Agricultural Program, in an attempt to help Texas? green industry producers compete effectively in an evolving marketplace, developed the Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM programs. Both of these programs intend to raise awareness among consumers of Texas-grown plant material while promoting environmental responsibility, and to increase producers? profitability by providing them with products that can be sold at a price premium. In spite of the considerable investments on research and marketing that have been done in order to assure the release of every new plant, no research has investigated the effectiveness of these branding efforts in terms of consumer?s behavior. This research seeks to evaluate brand awareness and willingness-to-pay on the part of lawn and garden consumers. The discrete choice models used were the logit and probit model on brand awareness and the tobit model on the conditional willingness-to-pay. Results from this study conclude that consumers? awareness of Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM in the Texas area is low, but the satisfaction level among aware consumers is high. The presence of awareness was found to increase willingness-to-pay for Texas Superstar TM and Earth-Kind TM by about 10%. Furthermore, profiles of the consumers? behavioral and demographic characteristics that are more likely to influence brand awareness and willingness-to-pay were identified.Item Delegation in Tourism Decision Making: Toward an Understanding of the Role of Social Surrogate(2014-07-30) Stone, Matthew JohnTourism is often a group-based activity, but tourism decision-making research has primarily focused on individual decision making and who makes decisions in families. However, there are numerous situations in which individuals do not make decisions for themselves, effectively delegating decisions such as where to visit, stay, or eat to others in their travel party, called ?social surrogates.? Unlike traditional surrogates described by prior researchers, social surrogates are not part of a formal business relationship and often participate in consumption. The purpose of this study was to investigate delegation of decisions to social surrogates and to determine which attributes lead to delegation. A nationwide web-based survey (n=404) found that decision delegation to social surrogates frequently occurred in travel environments. The study also revealed that there are two separate factors comprising decision delegation: the desire to defer a decision and the desire to make a choice (?choose?). Two structural equation models were tested. The first model found that decision-making style affected decision delegation. Additionally, results provided evidence that desire to defer decisions and desire to make a choice are not clear opposites, but are separate components of decision delegation. A second model revealed that high purchase involvement, desire to control others, relinquishing control, and propensity to make risky decisions led to the desire to choose. A desire to relinquish control led to deferring decisions, as did low purchase involvement. Decision delegation also was found to be more likely in situations in which the decision-maker felt that others had more relative experience and expertise. Decision delegation to social surrogates was found to be common in tourism. Results suggest it would be incorrect to assume that individuals make all of their decisions, so all customers may not be of equal importance to tourism marketers. Some individuals may have little to no role in choice (as they defer decisions), while others (social surrogates) may hold great influence over others (by making decisions). Results suggest that individuals may defer about half of restaurant and activity decisions in tourism. Thus, identifying who actually made the decision may be an important prerequisite to understanding tourism consumer behavior.Item Understanding Consumer Response to the Olympic Visual Identity Designs(2016-12) Wu, Di; Hunt, Thomas M; Bowers, Matthew; Castelli, Darla M; Dixon, Marlene A; Todd, Janice SAbstract: Visual identity designs are frequently used as branding tools to build or modify images of sport event and its host destination and to help consumers to identify the event and its host destination. To measure the effectiveness of the Olympic Games visual identity designs regarding their branding values, this study focused on logo design and built a framework based on design studies, image formation studies, and information transfer studies to capture the effects of design messages on consumer evaluations of event image, destination images, and logo representativeness. A 2 (absence and presence of event design message) x 2 (absence and presence of destination design message) x 2 (absence and presence of athletic movement design message) x 2 (nationality) x 2 (gender) experimental design was employed to test the effects of design messages on evaluations of the Olympic Games image, the host destination image, as well as the logo representativeness. The research findings show that the effects of design messages on event image and the host city image were asymmetrical and were limited to certain image dimensions. Design messages of the event, the host city, and athletic movement didn’t significantly influence consumer evaluation of the host city image, but design messages of the event and the host city did affect event type image dimension. Moreover, in general, design messages of the event and the host city can also benefit consumer evaluations of logo representativeness. This study also tested the relationships between evaluations of event image, destination image, logo representativeness and consumer behavioral intentions regarding the event and its destination. Findings suggest that effects of design messages on evaluations of event and host city images are limited and asymmetrical. In general, both event design message and destination design message contributed to logo representativeness of the event and destination. The importance of evaluations of event image, destination image, and logo representativeness on consumer behavioral responses vary depends on consumer behavioral intentions are destination related or event related. Furthermore, the moderating effects of culture and gender were found in this study on evaluations of event image and destination image, as well as consumer decision-making process.