PALGRAVE STUDIES IN

MARKETING, ORGANIZATIONS AND

SOCIETY

Visualizing Marketing
From Abstract to Intuitive

Second Edition

S. Umit Kucuk
Palgrave Studies in Marketing, Organizations
and Society

Series Editor
David W. Stewart, College of Business Administration, Loyola
Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA
This book series will focus on the broader contributions of marketing to
the firm and to society at large. It takes a focus more consistent with
the original reasons the marketing discipline was founded, the creation of
efficient systems through with societies provision themselves and match
supply with the needs of a diverse market. First, it looks at the contri-
bution of marketing to the firm, or more broadly, to the organization
(recognizing that marketing plays a role in not-for-profit organizations,
governments, and other organization, in addition to for-profit commer-
cial businesses). Marketing plays a pivotal and unique role in the creation
and management of intangible assets such as brands, customer lists and
customer loyalty, trademarks, copyrights, patents, and specialized knowl-
edge. Second, the series explores the broader contributions of marketing
to the larger society of which it is a part. The societal effect of the
modern firm, largely through the development of markets, can be seen
in the per capita growth of GDP in Western Europe between 1350 and
1950. During this period, per capita GDP increased by almost 600%,
while remaining virtually unchanged in China and India during the same.
Marketing has played an important role in the improvement of the
quality of life through increasing the number, nature and variety products
and services, the improvement of the quality and convenience of these
product and services, and by making these products and services more
readily accessible to larger numbers of persons. The series will examine
ways in which marketing has been employed in the service of social
welfare—to promote healthy behaviors, family planning, environmentally
friendly behavior, responsible behavior, and economic development.
 S. Umit Kucuk

Visualizing Marketing
From Abstract to Intuitive

Second Edition
S. Umit Kucuk
University of Washington Tacoma
Tacoma, WA, USA

ISSN 2661-8613 ISSN 2661-8621 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Marketing, Organizations and Society
ISBN 978-3-031-18214-3 ISBN 978-3-031-18215-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0

1st edtion: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
2nd edition: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
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 Dedicated to
Ayten and Halim
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

Part I Traditional Marketing Visualizations

2 Marketing and Marketing Mix 7
What Is Marketing? 7
Is Marketing Art or Science? 10
Conclusion 12
References 13
3 Product 15
New Product Development 16
Product Launch 17
Product Diffusion 20
Product Development 22
Product Life Cycle (PLC) 25
Product Life Extension 28
Product Segmentation 31
Services 34
Conclusion 36
References 37
4 Price 39
Demand-based Pricing 41
Price Elasticity 43

vii
viii CONTENTS

Cost-based Pricing 46
Break-even Analysis for Pricing 47
Perception-based Pricing 50
Conclusion 55
References 56
5 Place 57
Benefits of Distribution 57
Distribution Elasticity 61
Inventory Control 63
Out-of-Stock (OOS) Situation 66
Conclusion 69
References 71
6 Promotion 73
Advertising 75
Advertising Effectiveness and Wear-Out 75
Advertising Believability 80
Sales Promotion 83
Personal Selling 88
Public Relations 93
Coordination of Promotion Mix Elements 95
Push and Pull Strategies 96
Conclusion 99
References 101
7 Marketing Mix Modeling and Coordination 103
Product Life Cycle and Marketing Mix 103
Consumer Decision-Making and Marketing Mix 104
AIDA and Marketing Mix 107
Branding and Marketing Mix 108
Competitiveness and Marketing Mix 110
Market Share and Marketing Mix 112
Conclusion 114
References 114

Part II Digital Marketing Visualizations

8 Digital Marketing and Digital Marketing Mix 119
Definition of Digital Marketing 120
Hierarchy of Consumer Digital Needs 123
 CONTENTS ix

The Interaction of 4Ps and 4Cs 125

Transformation with Digital Marketing 127
Connectivity 128
Content 134
Community 140
Commitment 145
Conclusion 150
References 152
9 Connectivity 157
Addressability 159
Email Marketing 159
Determining Factors of Successful Email Marketing 166
Findability 168
Domain Name Branding 169
Search Engine Marketing 173
Conclusion 180
References 183
10 Content 185
Content Marketing and Likeability 186
Content Mix 193
Written Content 193
Audio Content 193
Visual Content 194
Video Content 196
Content Mix Management 199
Personalization 200
User-Generated Content (UGC) 202
Content Complexity 205
Conclusion 207
References 211
11 Community 215
What Is Online Community? 216
The Function of Online Community 218
Online Community Detection 225
Shareability 227
e-WOM and Viral Marketing 229
Conclusion 236
References 239
x CONTENTS

12 Commitment 243
Defining Commitment and Credibility 244
Trust 247
Trust in Company 250
Trust in Website 251
Trust in Other Consumers/Sources 252
Commitment 255
Affective vs Continuance Digital Commitment 258
Conclusion 263
References 267
13 Digital Marketing Mix Modeling and Coordination 273
Product Life Cycle (PLC) and 4Cs 274
Consumer Decision-Making Process and 4Cs 277
Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) and 4Cs 281
Commitment Curve and 4Cs 283
Consumer-based Brand Building and 4Cs 286
Competition and 4Cs 288
Conclusion 290
References 291

Index 293
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Marketing solar system 9

Fig. 2.2 Is marketing art or science? 10
Fig. 3.1 Product development process (Source Hisrich and Peters
[1991]) 17
Fig. 3.2 Product launch and market penetration (Source Schwarze
and Thomas Wein [2005]) 18
Fig. 3.3 Sales patterns for trial, repeat, and total sales (Source
Urban and Hauser [1993]) 20
Fig. 3.4 Kano Model (Source © Daniel Zacarias
[foldingburritos.com]) 23
Fig. 3.5 Product diffusion and product life cycle (Source The
Author’s) 26
Fig. 3.6 Various product life cycle patterns 28
Fig. 3.7 Innovation discontinuity and competitiveness (Source
http://facadetreatments.blogspot.com/2010/11/life-
cycle-of-blog.html#links; https://gongos.com/tl/how-
disruptions-are-born-and-how-it-applies-to-the-market-res
earch-discipline/; http://innovisio.blogspot.com/2012/
12/capturing-opportunity-indisruption.html) 30
Fig. 3.8 Traditional and new product segmentations 32
Fig. 3.9 Segment and consumer value comparison 33

xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.10 Evaluation of goods and services (Source Inspired

by Valarie A. Zeithaml [1991]) Author’s note: I
used/combined specific elements of Zeithaml’s (1991)
work…red highlighted elements are my own contribution
to the figure! (Color figure online) 35
Fig. 4.1 The fundamentals of pricing 40
Fig. 4.2 Demand and revenue curves 41
Fig. 4.3 Demand–supply and price equilibrium 43
Fig. 4.4 Price elasticity 44
Fig. 4.5 Residual elasticity (Source Farris et al. [2006]) 46
Fig. 4.6 Break-even pricing 48
Fig. 4.7 Marginal cost and marginal revenue 49
Fig. 4.8 Value corridor-price and quality relationship (Inspired
from Corstjens and Corstjens [1995]. Author’s note This
figure was published as this way in the first edition of this
book) 51
Fig. 4.9 Price lining 53
Fig. 4.10 Price skimming and penetration pricing 54
Fig. 5.1 Production, distribution, and average costs (Source
Rosenbloom [1999]) 59
Fig. 5.2 Distribution elasticity (Source West [1989]) 62
Fig. 5.3 Distribution and market share (Source Farris et al. [1989]
and Reibstein and Farris [1995]) 62
Fig. 5.4 Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) 64
Fig. 5.5 Bullwhip effects (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
File:Bulwhip_efect.jpg. I couldn’t find the original article
but Wikipedia reference) 65
Fig. 5.6 Algorithm for consumer behaviors in OOS situation
(Note Dotted lines indicate consumers’ behavioral
responses to the OOS item as also discussed in OOS
literature. Source Kucuk [2011]) 67
Fig. 5.7 Push-based brand awareness (Source Kucuk [2011]) 69
Fig. 6.1 Forgetting curve and advertising repetition (Source
Ebbinghaus [1913] or Colin [1995]) 76
Fig. 6.2 Advertising repetition and mode on recall (Source Zielske
[1959]) 78
Fig. 6.3 Wear out effects of advertising in different pulsing
scenarios (Source Greenberg and Suttoni [1973]; Taken
from Vakratsas and Prasad [2007]) 79
Fig. 6.4 Advertisement effectiveness (Source Farris et al. [2007]) 80
Fig. 6.5 Advertising truth effect (Source Wirthwein [2008]) 81
 LIST OF FIGURES xiii

Fig. 6.6 Brand sales without advertising (Source Hartnett et al.

[2021]) 83
Fig. 6.7 General sales promotion curve (Source Blattberg et al.
[1987]) 85
Fig. 6.8 Sales promotion effectiveness in various scenarios (a)
Sales temporarily increases and then returns to the regular
level (b) Sales increases and then remains at higher levels
(Source Perreault et al. [2012]) 86
Fig. 6.9 Alternative explanations of lack of post-promotion dip 88
Fig. 6.10 Mentality shift in personal selling process (Color figure
online) 89
Fig. 6.11 Align with the Buyer’s shifting concerns (Source
Bosworth [1995]) 91
Fig. 6.12 Message retention curve (Adapted from Moriarty et al.
[1995]) 92
Fig. 6.13 Post-sale relationship gap (Source Del Gaizo et al. [2004]) 93
Fig. 6.14 Influence flow in public relations 94
Fig. 6.15 Promotion mix elements effectiveness (Source Roger
et al. [2009]) 96
Fig. 6.16 Push and pull 97
Fig. 6.17 Brand awareness and preference model (Source Wirthwein
[2008]) 99
Fig. 7.1 Product life cycle and marketing mix interplays 105
Fig. 7.2 Consumer decision making and marketing mix 106
Fig. 7.3 AIDA and marketing mix 108
Fig. 7.4 Branding and marketing mix 109
Fig. 7.5 Competitiveness and marketing mix 111
Fig. 8.1 Hierarchy of consumer digital needs (Source The Author’s) 124
Fig. 8.2 The interaction of traditional and digital marketing mix
elements (Source The Author’s) 126
Fig. 9.1 Addressability and findability 158
Fig. 9.2 The anatomy of email marketing 160
Fig. 9.3 Attention threshold and SPAM 164
Fig. 9.4 Filtering and deletion of SPAM 165
Fig. 9.5 Function of domain name 169
Fig. 9.6 Link popularity 177
Fig. 9.7 Website visibility with different SEM techniques 179
Fig. 10.1 The role of content in 4Cs 188
Fig. 10.2 ROI comparison of PPC and content marketing (Source
https://alecanmarketing.com/blog/content-marketing-
crushes-ppc-over-time/, visited on November 17, 2021) 192
Fig. 10.3 Evaluation of content mix effectiveness 197
xiv LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 10.4 Relative effectiveness of shorter versus longer video

advertisements (Source Varan et al. [2020: 56]) 198
Fig. 10.5 Consumer control and credibility relationship in content
management 204
Fig. 10.6 Visual complexity and consumer liking 207
Fig. 11.1 What is community? https://thestartup.substack.com/
p/online-community (online—community by Richard
Awoyemi—The Statup) 219
Fig. 11.2 The role of community in 4Cs 222
Fig. 11.3 Community detection and link suggestion (Source
Karataş & Şahin [2018]) 226
Fig. 11.4 The impact of likeability and shareability 228
Fig.11.5 Lifecycle of an event/post in a community (Source Mu
et al. [2021: 220]) 231
Fig.11.6 Community and e-WOM 231
Fig. 11.7 Strong and weak ties 234
Fig. 12.1 The role of commitment in 4Cs 245
Fig. 12.2 Commitment in traditional and digital marketing 247
Fig. 12.3 Consumer power and trust 250
Fig. 12.4 Consumer fake information sharing and bots 254
Fig. 12.5 Affective and continuance commitment 260
Fig.13.1 Product life cycle and digital marketing mix interplay 275
Fig.13.2 The role of digital marketing mix elements in consumer’s
decision-making process 278
Fig.13.3 AIDA and 4Cs 281
Fig.13.4 Commitment curve in the digital markets 285
Fig.13.5 Stages of consumer-based brand building in the digital
platforms 286
Fig.13.6 Competition and 4Cs 289
 List of Tables

Table 8.1 Traditional vs. digital marketing value elements 127

Table 8.2 The interaction of digital and traditional marketing mix
elements 131
Table 9.1 How do search engine and human view websites
differently? 176

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Marketing and consumer behavior theories generally use very abstract

concepts to explain various concepts and phenomena in the field. In
fact, it could be fair to say that marketing is, by itself, a very abstract
concept. Thus, many of my colleagues are using simulation programs
and/or implementing marketing metrics in their courses to give students
more hand-on and concrete experiences so they can easily grasp the
soul of deeply abstract of such marketing concepts. This is a quite chal-
lenge for many marketing educators and scholars. However, these abstract
marketing concepts could be explained with intuitively developed visual
graphs and illustrations to create a better understanding of marketing.
Similarly, I have always found myself drawing graphics or figures on
the board to create some concrete experiences for my students ever since
I started teaching marketing courses. The reason, in fact, is that marketing
is more social science than a normative science even though it started to
lean on more normative science with the increasing availability of data
in these days. Recent trends in developing marketing metrics to see the
causes and effects is a strong sign of such efforts to create concise and
concrete information. My solution is taking those abstract issues, which
are surrounded by boring and dry discussions at times, and put them
in a graphical or visual format so that everybody in the classroom can
easily follow step-by-step what we are talking about it, and follow and
enjoy the conversations. In fact, I sometimes found myself discussing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_1
2 S. U. KUCUK

and explaining all the related marketing chapters around just one graph
or a visual representation that touches the soul of the concept. This, in
turn, made my job easier and more effective to discuss many integrated
and connected abstract concepts all together with everybody who can
come from different scholarly backgrounds especially the ones with more
natural science background. During my teaching, I had good responses
and interest from my students about this approach as well, and everybody
enjoyed discussing such abstract marketing concepts in a more concrete
and visualized format. The best part is many students were able to see the
big picture clearly and can connect each concept with others with clarity.
So that students are able to connect marketing concepts with other related
subjects that come from other sciences such as Economics, Psychology,
Statistics, Econometrics, and so on. Overall, this increased my teaching
quality and student learning experiences. Thus, I will present various
graphics, figures, and various visual illustrations that help us to under-
stand the real meanings behind such abstract marketing concepts in this
book.
Furthermore, with the recent advent of the digital technologies, it is
now easier to access and collect more data about companies, consumers,
and market players. Today’s data-rich environment provided many tools
to develop graphs and figures about marketing concepts to reach more
concrete generalizations and understanding of such abstract marketing
concepts as well. Although the ability to access and collect various forms
of data is getting easier, many scholars and marketing practitioners are
having a hard time about how to attack this enormous amount of data
collected in digital spaces and make sense of dynamically changing today’s
marketing. Many marketing professionals are now searching for concrete
evidence about what the old abstract marketing theory proposes so that
they can invest their marketing buck accordingly. Although we have a
better chance to reach generalizable empirical findings, finding mean-
ingful and significant findings in these data-rich environments looks like
finding a needle in the haystack. The visuals and graphs were developed
intuitively in this book could provide a roadmap to scholars and practi-
tioners on how and where to start analyzing their data. In this context,
visualizing and summarizing such data in a simple graphical format can
eventually give marketing scholars and practitioners to make sense of
their marketing data and marketing all together. Visualizing marketing
data and marketing concepts can also eliminate many obstacles marketing
educators face daily in the classroom caused by the abstract nature of
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

marketing and consumer behavior theories. These are the main reasons
why I decided to collect and analyze such marketing graphics, figures,
and visual artifacts to open to door to a more concrete and understand-
able marketing world in today’s data-rich environments. Yet, this is not
an easy task as I will touch base a little bit as follows.
Marketing organically evolves socially and culturally in our societies
all the time. And recently marketing has gone through a major changes
and challenges last couple of decades with the digital revolution. Thus,
in this second edition of my book, I also decided to add a new part
that extends the marketing knowledge to digital marketing so that we
can be behind such head-spinning changes. In the first part of the book,
I will first discuss what marketing is and the essential marketing mix
elements as also known as 4P elements (Product, Price, Place, and Promo-
tion). Following, I will discuss each marketing mix element one by one
with designated graphics and figures in separate chapters. Later, I will
introduce the marketing mix modeling discussions to provide a sense of
how things can get clearer when such marketing mix elements are used
together to create a marketing synergy.
The traditional marketing’s 4P conceptualization is theoretically strong
as also explained in the book’s first edition. However, such 4P elements
are also started to change as a result of today’s digital transformation
of markets and marketing. There is still no clear arguments on how to
define today’s digital marketing and its value creation components as the
theory is still trying to find its way. In this respect, we are currently
needing a similar sound theoretical structure for digital marketing as
well. Thus, in the second part of the book, I introduce the today’s new
marketing, digital marketing, and hence discuss the major transformation
in marketing mix elements as a result of digital revolution. This new part
proposes a new and more detailed definition of the digital marketing and
its value elements on a firmer theoretical foundation.
As a result, the new part, Part-II, will provide a new conceptualiza-
tion of new market value creation elements, namely conceptualized as
4C elements (Connectivity, Content, Community, and Commitment) in
the digital markets. Following chapters in this new section will discuss
such 4C elements one by one with their visuals, illustrations, and graphs.
Finally, the book introduces a new chapter that discusses the potential
interactions and synergies among such digital 4C elements to provide a
more comprehensive use of an “integrated digital value creating process”
in the digital world. With this new section of the book, I hope to be able
4 S. U. KUCUK

to provide a discussion about how transformation of traditional marketing

to today’s modern digital marketing had been took place and where
the theoretical development could ahead. More importantly, marketing
theory needs a integrated new conceptualizations of marketing systems
with both traditional and digital market perspectives which can help us
re-define today’s marketing in a more organized and theoretically sound
manner. In this context, it could be said that the main proposition of
this book is to emphasize the fact that marketing visuals and graphs that
were transformed from real data or developed with strong theoretical
background in mind could also help marketing scholars and thinkers to
build and develop today’s dynamically changing marketing thought. This,
I believe, is also possible by using such new digital tools and data that
explain digital marketing phenomena in today’s world. Therefore, I hope
the newly introduced new digital marketing section could also open a
new discussion on how to develop today’s dynamically changing digital
marketing concepts for the benefits of both consumers, companies, and
society in general.
In this context, this new edition is a great source for everyone who
is daily dealing with both traditional and digital marketing environments
and wants to learn more about the founding theories of marketing. This
includes business and marketing students, both undergraduate and grad-
uate levels, as well as marketing practitioners who try to make sense of
today’s dynamically evolving marketing world and concepts.
My wish is that this new edition shed some lights on the way forward
to new marketing explorations to come.
 PART I

Traditional Marketing Visualizations

 CHAPTER 2

Marketing and Marketing Mix

What Is Marketing?
When I asked the question “what is marketing” to my students in my
marketing classes or any audiences in a conference setting, I initially
received a couple of same responses all the time. And that is: marketing is
advertising, or a sales tactic, study of how to sale products to consumers.
This is how the public sees marketing although marketing is much
deeper than just advertising or a simple sales tactic. It seems marketing is
perceived as more like a communication and exchange tool than anything
else by public. Unfortunately, some of such misperceptions also carry
some negative tone as many of us could have had experiences with
pushy salesmen and/or deceptive sales tactics in the past. Although there
were times when sales or advertisings are perceived as equivalent of
marketing, this is not true in today’s marketing world. Such misper-
ceptions or narrow-minded looks at marketing do not reflect the truth
behind today’s discipline of marketing since marketing is more than just
advertising, a sales tactic, or an effort to make consumers interested in
your products/services. Further, these narrowly defined conceptualiza-
tions of marketing focus on sales-dominant product logic, and hence
ignored consumers’ wants and needs. From a simplistic point of view,
marketing could be defined as a process of providing “value” rather than
“product” to consumers.1 Anything that can satisfy consumer needs and
wants has value for consumers, and that value is marketing’s main focus.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 7

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_2
8 S. U. KUCUK

Yet, marketing, one more time, is also more than just providing value
to consumers. It’s a socially complex system that needs to understand by
companies to provide profitable exchange opportunities with consumers
and society overall.
In this context, although there are various versions of definition of
marketing in the marketing theory, the most comprehensive and thor-
ough definition of marketing concept, which is developed by leading
marketing scholars, comes from American Marketing Association (AMA)
as follows:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,

exchanging, delivering, and communicating offerings that have value for
customers, clients, partners, and society at large 2 [Emphasis added].

This definition covers every aspect of marketing discipline. And, if you

look at this definition closely, you will see that the formal definition of
marketing basically has four major components:

1. creating an offering for consumers,

2. exchanging the offering with right value with consumers,
3. delivering that offering to the consumers, and
4. communicating with that offering consumers.

In marketing, creating an offering is generally conceptualized as “Pro-

duct”, exchanging is conceptualized as “Pricing”, delivering is concep-
tualized as “Place-Distribution”, and finally communicating is discussed
as “Promotion”. This definition, in fact, covers the major marketing 4P
elements (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) and is defined as “Mar-
keting Mix” elements as we discuss broadly in many marketing courses.
All in all, without a consumer who has willingness and ability to buy the
product under influence of the marketing mix elements, all the marketing
efforts will be wasted. Thus, consumers sit at the heart of all marketing
activities and marketers need to learn how to reach consumers by utilizing
their marketing mix elements. In a way, the consumer is the one who gives
light and energy to all the marketing mix elements and hence marketing
campaigns. Any marketing plan that does not put consumers on the center
is destined to fail. Thus, each marketing mix element will survive to which
degree their capability of influencing and impacting the consumer’s feel-
ings, thoughts, and behaviors. In other words, marketing mix elements
 2 MARKETING AND MARKETING MIX 9

are all spin around consumers for attention and try to transform the
energy they got from consumers into meaningful and effective marketing
responses like happens in our solar system as also pictured in Fig. 2.1.
Without the light of consumer demand, marketing solar system can’t
survive, and marketing can’t be existed. In short, without consumers,
markets cannot be existing nor companies.
Thus, all the marketing operations or planning of each marketing mix
elements must be developed consumers in mind all the time. This, in
turn, eventually gave life to today’s modern and more consumer-centric
marketing approach which is also conceptualized as SIVA (Solution,
Information, Value, and Access) by Dev and Shultz (2005) as follows:

Product » Solution
Price » Value
Place » Access
Promotion » Information

PRODUCT

COMMUNICATING Value CREATING Value

PROMOTION PRICE
CONSUMER

DELIVERING Value EXCHANGING Value

PLACE

Fig. 2.1 Marketing solar system

10 S. U. KUCUK

If the product and service can’t carry solutions to consumer’s needs,

if promotion can’t carry necessary information to consumers to make
decision, if pricing can’t carry right value to consumers, and finally if
place-distribution can’t make the product available and accessible or avail-
able at the right time, right place with right quantity; then marketing
interaction with consumers cannot exist. These four must work together
harmoniously to create a marketing synergy in the markets to reach long-
lasting marketing successes. Otherwise, the marketing solar system can’t
be existing.

Is Marketing Art or Science?

Furthermore, although marketing can be defined as social science, there
are some art and some normative science features conveyed. With the
increasing efforts to quantify marketing and hence the development of
marketing metrics, another important question can come to mind: “Is
marketing art or science?” Or, alternatively: “how much of marketing
can be defined as science or art as it is easy to find both artistic and
scientific approached in many marketing practices?” Thus, understanding
the potential relationships between each marketing mix element and
their scientific and artistic origins can provide a clearer view about each
marketing elements role in the solar system as also pictured in Fig. 2.2.
PRODUCT is a very central element. Without a product there won’t
be pricing, place, or promotion. Thus, developing products or services

SCIENCE

Place
Product

Price

Promotion

ART

Fig. 2.2 Is marketing art or science?

 2 MARKETING AND MARKETING MIX 11

that satisfy consumer needs and wants to require entrepreneurial focus

and attention. In this sense, scientific findings and innovations could be
the starting point of products or services. Making any adjustment to make
product fits the current market and consumer needs requires advanced
usage of many scientific or engineering methods to build a product. Thus,
the product depended on many scientific findings. On the other hand, a
product also needs a soul and identity in order to better communicate
with consumers. That function is carried by branding. In other words, if
the product is the body, the brand will function like a soul of the body.
Without these two, no product will reach market success and consumer
acceptance.
PRICE uses the economics and modern behavioral economics’ theory
and their scientific methods. Many economics laws are implemented in
company’s distribution of value in consumer markets. Although it is
mostly scientific, the representation of price in different situations revealed
deviation from traditional economic theories as broadly discussed in
behavioral economics. At the end, all human beings act with emotions
and make momentary decisions once in a while. Thus, price seems more
dependent on social science and its methods than normative science.
PLACE focuses on sheer distribution of products and services. It
eventually deals with major logistics, and hence space–time optimization
problems. Place can be defined as a silent marketing mix element as it is
highly dependent on other 3P elements’ (product, promotion, and price)
ability to create a marketing effect in markets. That’s because previously
unknown products can’t create consumer demand by solely being avail-
able in store spaces. However, place can play a very active role in creating
demand and market impact for especially frequently purchase products in
consumer markets.
PROMOTION basically focuses on developing right communication
with consumers and company, products and services produced. Most
of the time, promotion uses art forms to communicate and inform
consumers about the benefits of the products and services. Promotion
can play a very important role in developing the right brand identity that
can fit consumers’ ideal selves so that they can fulfill their psychological
and social wellbeing. A successful brand identity can be created with a
deep analysis of the meanings of the identity from a wide variety of semi-
otic, ethnographic, and anthropologic points of view. Thus, promotion
benefits from human psychology and sociology by utilizing art and many
communication tools.
12 S. U. KUCUK

Conclusion
Marketing is the only business function that can directly and constantly
interact with business environment. A company’s or any business enti-
ty’s survival and long-term market existence are highly dependent on its
interaction with business environment in which the company operates. In
other words, if a company were a state, marketing would function like
foreign affairs. The changes in business environment could be economic,
social, technological, or cultural, and hence marketing needs to be directly
interacted with such diverse environmental forces since they influence
many aspects of our daily lives. Thus, it could be claimed that marketing
has a broader impact on individuals and society more than many other
social science fields. Yet, marketing scholars were able to summarize
and define this highly abstract and broad concept with 4P elements or
marketing mix conceptualization. In other words, marketers try to control
their uncontrollable environment with such 4P elements for business
survival.
In this context, it could be said that the 4P conceptualization of
marketing clearly provides a very strong and comprehensive managerial
and theoretical infrastructure for both scholars and practitioners. This 4P
conceptualization of marketing is also about the change with the advent
of digital technologies that promise a new type of marketing, what we
generally call “digital marketing”. Yet, 4Ps are still valid and holding
their importance, especially in physical marketing environments. Thus,
4Ps are good starting points to discuss some generalizable visualization of
marketing concepts in the theory. As a result, the following sections will
focus on each marketing mix element one by one with their visual expla-
nations to reveal how marketing is impacting our behaviors and hence
our consumption world.

Notes
1. Silk (2006).
2. Http://www.marketingpower.com/aboutama/pages/definitionofmarket
ing.aspx.
 2 MARKETING AND MARKETING MIX 13

References
Dev, C. S., & Schultz, D. E. (2005). In the mix: A customer-focused approach
can bring the current marketing mix into the 21st century. Marketing
Management, 14(1), 16–22.
Silk, A. J. (2006). What is marketing? Harvard Business Press.
 CHAPTER 3

Product

Product is what marketers provide to solve the consumer problems.

Product can be categorized into three groups: physical products-goods,
services, and ideas. Alternatively, they can be classified as tangibles (phys-
ical products-goods) and intangibles (services and ideas). In fact, every
marketing organization provides a mix of tangible and intangible product
elements (e.g., Starbucks does not only sell coffee but also experience-café
service and atmosphere). Thus, product can provide benefits beyond its
psychical appearance or function. All the other marketing mix elements
are shaped product in mind. In this sense, the product concept is a very
essential part of every marketing effort.
Successful product is the metamorphosis of a groundbreaking innova-
tion. Every company is strategically dependent on innovations that have
potential to change the markets and consumer behaviors. Thus, devel-
oping a product concept means changing consumers’ old habits with a
new product. It is always not easy to change behaviors as these challenges
potentially increase adaptation hassle and uncertainty. The level of conve-
nience and usefulness introduced by the innovation should be perceived
to be worth trying by consumers. In other words, the innovation should
have first fix consumers’ problems and have a competitive advantage over
available alternatives in the markets.
From company’s point of view, transforming a basic innovation into
a marketable product requires major cost analysis. Although exploring

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 15

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_3
16 S. U. KUCUK

an innovation that has potential to satisfy consumer needs in markets

is one of the major goals of company, this doesn’t mean that company
should take every financial risk to reach this goal. Possible cost of
producing a product with various levels of quality options can tie compa-
ny’s hands. Thus, every marketing manager must keep in mind that the
balance between three major factors—Innovation, Cost, and Quality—
while developing and marketing a new product idea. These three elements
are at the heart of a strategically well-structured product idea. Thus,
there should be a balanced relationship between innovativeness, product
quality, and costs. If company can eventually reach this balance, then it
can be able to develop and launch a successful product to markets.

New Product Development

Every product idea goes through different testing and planning stages
(aka “New Product Development Process”): idea stage, concept stage,
product development stage, test marketing stage, and commercialization
stages. Companies get many product ideas from different sources. But
the problem is how to screen all the possible ideas and find the right
one. This also indicates how good company is defining and determining
the future growth areas in the markets. Once the appealing product
idea is found, the company needs to develop right product concept and
develop a tentative business plan. If this stage is passed with promises,
company can develop a prototype. Prototype can be tested in laboratory,
and perhaps tested with potential consumers. Once the product devel-
opment stage is passed, the new product can be tested in the market,
thus consumer acceptance in real markets can be investigated. Finally, the
new product can be launched in a small market with a specific marketing
plan in the commercialization stages. Although new product development
stages are explained with simple explanations, in reality, it can take years
(from 10 years to sometimes 30 years) to develop and test new product
ideas out of thousands. During all of these screening stages, company’s
investment on developing one feasible product idea increases when the
ideas reached to commercializable marketing entity status as also pictured
in Fig. 3.1.
In each stage of new product development process, company needs
to understand the ideas and innovations’ competitiveness and compati-
bility of future marketing activities, product production costs for various
quality levels while screening and eliminating all the inappropriate fits.
 3 PRODUCT 17

Product Test
Idea Concept Commercialization
Number of New Product Ideas

Amount of Investment
Development Marketing
Stage Stage Stage Stage Stage

Fig. 3.1 Product development process (Source Hisrich and Peters [1991])

If company can’t find or develop a right fit needed and demanded by

markets, the new product development process ends with failure. In
reality, new product failure rates are very high (80% to 90% for some
industries). Very few ideas can be adapted by consumers due to various
marketing mistakes during and after new product development stages,
thus sometimes new product can be born prematurely death. The lack of
marketing planning in both product development and product launching
stages can eventually shorten the life of product.

Product Launch
Success of new product can be determined by how fast the product is
launched and delivered to consumption. The successful products are the
one who can reach and penetrate the markets in the early stages without
wasting any time. In other words, market penetration ratios can be used as
an early indicator of the future success or failure of product deployment as
also pictured in the following graph. The Fig. 3.2 pictures the relationship
between product launch and market penetration ratios for automotive
industry. Market penetration is the percentage of the market bought the
product at least once. In other words, penetration indicates how many
people you were able to reach without considering how many and how
often those consumers buy from you. Penetration rates are important as
they indicate initial consumer interest and who initially wants to try to
product, thus it is early success indicator of product launch.
If a company reaches high penetration numbers, it means that number
of consumers who bought from the company is relatively getting higher
18 S. U. KUCUK

Market
Penetration (%)

100 Successful

Delayed

Unsuccessful

Niche
Time

Fig. 3.2 Product launch and market penetration (Source Schwarze and Thomas
Wein [2005])

than competitors. This is a great success for a new product especially

if the penetration rates increase rapidly once the product introduced to
the markets. If the product is tried by all the consumers in the market,
then company reaches 100% penetration and can be considered to be
very successful in launching the new product (as indicated with straight
“Successful” line in the Fig. 3.2). But this is not the case all the time.
Sometimes it takes time, perhaps a decade in the automotive industry, to
reach high level of penetration numbers. Possible delays in reaching high
penetration numbers can directly affect product life. Most of the unsuc-
cessful products might reach average penetration numbers (perhaps 30%
or 40%), and then decrease sharply (as indicated by the dotted “unsuccess-
ful” line in Fig. 3.2). This means that product reached limited number of
consumers, and rest of most of the consumers didn’t even give it a try. In
some situations, market penetration numbers stay at very low levels (say
5% to 10%) over a long time period. This is, in fact, an indicator that the
product is only accepted by a limited number of select consumers. This
can be used as an indicator of a niche market since it was not totally disap-
peared by preferred lower numbers of consumers in the markets. The idea
is to reach the markets in a short time period once the new product devel-
opment process is completed or before anybody else holds the corner.
Furthermore, sometimes the product development process and market
penetration efforts can overlap as most of the marketing activities may
 3 PRODUCT 19

start before the product launch (Roberston, 1993). Although the time
to market can vary depending on many other external factors, compa-
nies don’t want to waste any time especially in highly competitive and
technologically challenging product markets.
Thus, company need to develop diagnostic systems to understand how
the penetration levels evolve in the early stages of the new product’s
launch. In general, the company needs to stimulate more product trials
and repeat purchase to secure penetration and sales volume for long
period for especially convenience goods.
There are two important factors that impact product trials and
hence product penetration levels: consumer awareness and attitudes. If
consumers are not aware of the product that it is available in the market,
they cannot buy the product. However, even consumer awareness levels
are high, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that consumer will buy the
product. Another important features company needs to look at is positive
consumer attitudes toward the product/service delivered. In other words,
consumer awareness is not enough by itself unless the company creates
positive consumer attitudes toward a product that can potentially trans-
form product awareness into a trial or hence purchase decision. In the
early stages of product launch, consumer awareness and positive attitude
can be established with strong advertisement campaigns with a power
of stimulating consumer trials. If a company (especially in frequently
purchased product markets) can’t be able to transform the high level of
product awareness and attitude levels into a product trial, the company
will face unexpected results.
Even though the company was able to successfully convince the
consumers to try its products, the next struggle will be how to trans-
form the early trials into repeat purchases in order to secure long-lasting
sales. Even though the company reaches a relatively significant aware-
ness and trial level, but consumers are not coming back to purchase the
product, that means there will be less or no future sales and thus product
potentially will die shortly after the launch. Thus, consumer’s “repeat
purchases” (aka “behavioral brand loyalty”) will determine the compa-
ny’s future especially in frequently purchased product markets once the
awareness and trial successes are accomplished. But it takes some time
to develop consumer habits thus repeat purchase behaviors. As it can be
observed from Fig. 3.3 that trial and repeat purchase shape the future of
a new product and its sales success.
20 S. U. KUCUK

Units Sold Per Month

Total Sales
Repeat

Trial

Months after Introduction

Fig. 3.3 Sales patterns for trial, repeat, and total sales (Source Urban and
Hauser [1993])

In this context, trial (or penetration) and repeat purchases are major
early indicators of how the future will fold for the new product. These
two diagnostic measures also indicate if the success of the product is
coming from good promotion and marketing efforts (trial) or from a
good product or consumer satisfaction (repeat) (Urban & Hauser, 1993).
The bottom line is; if company cannot be able to transform such early
trials into repeat purchasers, the future of the product will be in jeop-
ardy. Thus, company should find ways of increasing trial or penetration
numbers and then transforming high trial and product awareness numbers
into long-lasting consumer repeat purchases by providing satisfactory
shopping experiences.

Product Diffusion
It is clear that buying a totally new product can create some risks for
consumers, and not everybody wants to try new things at the beginning.
Every consumer has different levels of risk-taking reserves when making
purchase decisions about new products. Some consumers might be willing
to try new things easily than others, while some others prefer to wait till
see if the products perform well and receive good reviews from fellow
consumers and third parties. In other words, every consumer has different
speed and way of adopting an innovation or a new or a newly developed
product. This is also highly depended on product features and character-
istics (e.g., risks perceived by buying a new car and buying a candy change
dramatically). This issue is studied with well-known bell-shaped “diffusion
 3 PRODUCT 21

models” (Rogers, 1983). Diffusion models define six different consumer

types based on consumers’ risk-taking styles and personality features.
Early consumers who are keen to try the new product called
“Innovators”. These consumers are generally highly educated, knowl-
edgeable with high income, adventurous, willing to try new things, and
believe in alternative lifestyle, thus they are willing to take high risks
(Rogers [1983] predicts 2.5% of adaptors as innovators). The success
of the product diffusion is highly depending on innovators. Marketers’
main challenge, in this context, is how to be able to attract innovators
and differentiate innovators and non-innovators so they can direct the
right marketing efforts to those who can bring life to the product strug-
gling in early stages of its life. Because innovators are also sensitive and
vulnerable to competing for new products, it is very important to gain
attention and continuous business of innovators. This means reaching
increasing number of innovator consumers and raising repeat purchases
so that product can easily be depleted into markets for a long-standing
market presence.
However, innovators should not be considered as the only adaptors
of the innovation. Once the product is accepted by innovators, “Early
Adopters” who are social leaders and above average consumers can be
attracted by the product (13.5% of adaptors according to Rogers, 1983).
Early adopters are cautiously following innovators, and once they see
there is a future in this product, they want to be the first one to bring
this product to their social groups. Early adopters are the first big crowd
to try the product. Thus, they can be used actively in improving new
product on the way. Later, the product can be attracted by consumers
called “Early Majority” who are more deliberate and have average educa-
tion (aka average Joe) (average 34% of the adaptors according to Rogers,
1983). During Innovators and Early Adopters are under influence of
products performance and originality, thus the price of product could
be secondary in their purchase decision. Later, the “Late Majority” who
are more skeptical and have below-average education, start to use the
product mostly as a status sign (average 34% of adaptors according to
Rogers, 1983). This might be the time when product started to begin its
maturity stage in PLC—which means product is widely available in the
market and some level of positive awareness is established with previous
consumer experiences in the markets. As the product is widely used in
markets by different types of consumers as described above, company can
reach economies of scale thus product prices could start to go down. This
22 S. U. KUCUK

is when Late Majority finally gets into the picture. After Late Majority is
attracted, the final consumer group who are called “Laggards” start to
enter the market. Laggards are generally very fearful about trying new
things and only trust their close in-groups as information sources (average
16% of all adopters according to Rogers, 1983). These consumers are
generally appearing as the product started to die as its price goes dramati-
cally down, thus there are fewer financial risks to take buying this product.
Such classification within a bell-shaped diffusion model is pictured with
blue lines in Fig. 3.5.
Therefore, the company’s success in product launch will mostly depend
on its ability to find and attract innovators and early adaptors first so as
to past the chasm to reach a healthy sales growth. “Crossing the chasm1 ”
is highly depended on company’s success to stimulate such enthusiastic
and visionary consumers in order to establish a “Early Market” and then
company’s ability to attract to early majority, late majority, and laggards
who defines the company’s “Mainstream Market” as indicated with green
lines in Fig. 3.5. Without the development of early market at the early
stages of the product launch and introduction, company can’t be able
to reach mainstream market and can’t reach market continuity. Thus,
in order to reach mainstream, company needs to develop new versions
of the product and find the most appealing features of the product to
enhance consumer satisfaction. Without right market and product devel-
opment strategies, products life will eventually shorten product’s life as
also pictured in Fig. 3.5. As a result, product development processes need
to be investigated closely throughout the product’s life.

Product Development
Once the product is launched to the markets, its business success is
also dependent on how the company successfully developed the product
based on the degree to which constantly changing consumer demand
and market needs. No new product is perfect and hence every product
needs a little bit of modification after the launch in different stages in
its life. Company most likely needed to modify and adjust some features
of product based on consumer feedback and insights to satisfy them
for long-standing market presence. In other words, consumer satisfac-
tion eventually guarantees the future growth of product on the degree of
which to the chances parallel to consumer needs. Thus, every company
needs to determine which features of product are the main satisfaction
 3 PRODUCT 23

source so that it can keep and improve such features while dropping
the features that produce dissatisfactory results for consumers. Thus,
companies need to develop right roadmap for each product feature.
This process was best explained by Noriaki Kano, also known as Kano
Model,2 which takes “consumers satisfaction” and “product features” or
“product functionality” into consideration as also depicted in Fig. 3.4.
The model indicates that the company adds more features to its prod-
ucts which is indicated by “functionality” with x-axis, the more consumers
feel satisfied as indicated with y-axis. Thus, the model intuitively assumes
that there is a linear relationship between consumer satisfaction and
product functionality. For example, the more battery life you provide the
electric car you produce, the higher consumer satisfaction gets.
There are some features that become standard and must be included
in the product as they are demanded and expected by consumers. If such
standard features are not provided by the product, the product would
be considered bad or below the quality by the consumers. For example,
airbags or cup holders in the US car market are almost standard and any
newly produced car missing these features could be considered as incom-
plete or in fact obsolete. These features are called “Must-Be” features,
and company, at the least, must continue to provide such features for
at least acceptable consumer satisfaction. In other words, “Must-Be”
features indicate the bare minimum features expected from a product to

Fig. 3.4 Kano Model

(Source © Daniel
Zacarias [foldingburri
tos.com])
24 S. U. KUCUK

be accepted by the consumers and mainstream market, and hence they

do not necessarily create satisfaction. For Must-Be features, consumer
satisfaction comes from negative to almost tangent to indifference level
of functionality or it can be defined as “bare minimum functionality” as
also indicated in the bottom side of Fig. 3.4. However, such features
could change market-to-market or segment-to-segment. For example,
cup holder could not be seen as a Must-Be feature in some interna-
tional car markets, and perhaps some other features could be considered as
Must-Be features. Thus, companies need to pre-determine such features
for each market and segment and produce the product accordingly as the
least to reach basic requirements expected from a product.
The best product features which create satisfaction and in fact lead
to sales and profitability increase of the product are defined as “Attrac-
tive” features. Determination of such features requires deep analysis of
consumer psychology. Such attractive features actually provide an expe-
rience beyond what consumer was initially expecting from the product.
For example, when you drive your first electric vehicle you realize how
silent and smooth it rides compare to other alternatives. These features
provide delight and additional satisfaction to the consumers. The more
company develops such attractive attributes with the product, the higher
the consumer satisfaction gets as also pictured in Fig. 3.4. This, in turn,
increases sales of the product and extends its life in the markets. This is
where product development costs start impacting company’s budget as
more features and functionally are added to the product.
Overall, Must-Be features could be seen as Fixed Costs of product
development as such costs caused by the development of standard features
expected by the markets and consumers. On the other hand, Attractive
features costs come top of such fixed costs and keep changes until the
company finds the most attractive features to add its product to survive
competition in the markets. Thus, I think it is fair to define Attractive
features as Variable Costs of product development from Kano Model
perspective since such costs are not static and change over time. However,
it is true that Must-Be features change over time. For example, when the
first cell phones were developed, camera was not a standard feature as
we used our cell phones simply for communication. However, over time,
cameras became a standard feature, and any cell phone without a camera
can be seen as useless by many now. Thus, Fix Cost and Variable Cost
classification of Must-Be and Attractive features could only be true for
 3 PRODUCT 25

the life of Must-Be features. When the Must-Be features life is over like
cell phone without camera, company needs to change product develop-
ment cost structure based on what is new Must-Be features. Eventually,
the interplay of such product features will determine the total cost of
developing a product.

Product Life Cycle (PLC)

Products have a life, they were born, grow, reach a peak, and die.
This biological concept of life and death of organisms is well-structured
in product marketing applications with “Product Life Cycle (PLC)”
conceptualization. Every product or service was first invented and intro-
duced to the markets (aka “Introduction”). If product is successful, it
grows by generating sales for company (aka “Growth”) and then reaches
maturity (aka “Maturity”). When the sales and especially profit gener-
ated by the product started to be going down, the product ends its
life (aka “Decline”). Products life is highly depended on making right
marketing decisions in every stage of the product’s life as pictured with
red lines in Fig. 3.5. Product’s life will eventually be determined by
its ability to generate more sales and hence profit, and it is related
with diffusion models as well. Companies need to focus on Innova-
tors and Early adopters when first launched the new products to the
markets. Most of the sales eventually come from Early Majority and
Later Majority in Growth and Maturity stages as indicated in Fig. 3.5. In
decline, the focus should be Laggards. Product diffusion models based on
consumer’s risk-taking and adaption behaviors actually provide a market
segmentationapproach to marketers through PLC.
In the introduction stage, the product can’t make any profits and start
from negative profit numbers because of the high investment costs made
to innovate and develop the product as also indicated in Fig. 3.1. In
this introduction stage, however, the most important strategic marketing
focus should be creating “Consumer Awareness” and discussed in the
previous sections. Once the product starts to maximize sales capacity by
reaching early majority it reaches growth level and the profit starts soaring
as a result. This is the stage where the new product crosses the chasm and
started to feel early positive signs of growth. Thus, this is the stage every
product wants to stay as long as possible. Such growth will eventually
attract others and there will be always newcomers into the markets and
fierce competition can as a result dominate the product market. Thus, the
26 S. U. KUCUK

Sales ($)

Introduction Growth Maturity Decline

C
Early Market Mainstream Market
H

A PLC

M Diffusion

Time
Early Majority

Late Majority
Early Adopters

Laggards
Innovators

16%
34%
2.5%

34%
13.5%

Fig. 3.5 Product diffusion and product life cycle (Source The Author’s)

company marketing strategy should focus on “Product Differentiation”

at the growth stage. When the product reaches maturity stage, there will
be a lot of companies producing the same or similar products by using
the same technology in the market. Thus, the demand for the product
eventually slows down. This will eventually reduce sales numbers and
shrink products profit margins. The company should focus on “Product
Availability” in addition to product differentiation to be able to ahead
of the increasing competition. This also might be the right time for the
company to introduce a new product in the same line to extend the life of
its product. Because, eventually the product is slowly approaching the end
of its life selling gains more importance. After maturity stage, the product
sales and profit slow down and the product gets into decline stage as also
pictured in Fig. 3.5. The product gets old as new innovations, models,
and products are getting more popular in the markets. Thus, the company
needs to watch the innovations and new development closely to secure a
 3 PRODUCT 27

long-lasting profitable period for its own product. If incumbents come

up with a better and new technology, they eventually gain a competi-
tive advantage over the company’s product. When consumers also start
thinking that the company’s product is not performing well compared
to the new products introduced by the competitors, then company’s
competitiveness will be limited and thus the company consider discon-
tinuing its product or push more product development. In this decline
stage, the company should focus on providing the best value by lowering
the price. The company should focus on getting rid of extra inventory
costs created by lost sales by adjusting dying products’ price. Thus, “Value
Adjustment” is at the heart of marketing strategies at this stage. Around
maturity and decline stages company needs to start developing at the early
stages of the next generation products with the feedback gained from
mainstream markets as also discussed in Fig. 3.5.
However, it is important to emphasize that every product follows a
different path and thus each product has its own unique PLC. Some prod-
ucts stay in the market longer than others and they can be easily accepted
by consumers, but some others require extra consumer learning efforts.
For example, technologically complicated products such as consumer
electronics require more consumer learning and sales support, thus their
introduction stages stretch longer time periods as pictured in first graph in
Fig. 3.6. In other words, if the product is more complex, its introduction
stage takes a long time as it takes time to learn the product. For complex
products, consumers need more time to adapt the new product in their
lives to enjoy the suggested benefits. On the other hand, consumers
need less help to understand the quality and value of a new convenience
or frequently purchased product, thus their introduction stage can be
shorter than other types of products as also depicted in second graph in
Fig. 3.6. Some other types of products, especially fad products, there are
only introduction and decline product’s life as pictured in third graph in
Fig. 3.6. Many fashion items show these kinds of patterns. They growth
very fast in the introduction stage and die quickly without showing any
real growth and maturity stages.
Every product’s life should be predicted so that the company can deter-
mine its product development and hence product line extension schedules
successfully. Once the company knows when and in which stage the
product starts declining and dying, then they can easily determine the
best time to introduce new or newly developed products to extend the
28 S. U. KUCUK

Sales
Technologic products such as
home electronics require a
long learning period how to
use the product, etc. Thus,
introduction generally is
longer than other products.

Time

Sales
Frequently purchased
products as it is easy to learn
how to use such products. A
short introduction period and
easily adapted product such as
a new shaving razor.

Time

Sales
Fad products such as most of
the Halloween customs.
Easily and immediately
adapted by consumers but
after usage product dies so
quickly. Strong initial demand
and then sharp drop off in
Time product demand.

Fig. 3.6 Various product life cycle patterns

products life cycle in order to reach sustainable sales and profitability.

Otherwise, the company’s life would be short as well.

Product Life Extension

The determination of when and how to extend the product’s life
is a paramount issue as directly effects company’s competitiveness in
consumer markets. Development of product technology during growth
 3 PRODUCT 29

stage in PLC will eventually help company to create second generation

product technology and gain more competitiveness over newcomers to
the market. The ability to generate second generation products creates
continuity, sustainability, and strong presence in markets. Discontinuity
creates disruption and changes consumer behaviors for the benefit of
better products. Thus, company’s presence will directly be linked to
second generation products’ performance which is eventually dependent
on the company’s continuous innovativeness and ability to develop new
technology while the older product was in the consumption. This conti-
nuity and its importance are pictured and explained with Christensen’s
Technology S-Curves (1992).
As indicated in Fig. 3.7, the company needs to pass the discontinuity
stage or paradigm shift quickly without opening the door to the new
competitors. During this shift, the company needs to re-evaluate both its
own and competitors’ product competitiveness. Most of the products can
shorten their lives if they can’t maximize product quality and reliability
while minimizing their costs during consumption. It could be discussed
that as early as growth stage company should start planning second gener-
ation products in order to jump ahead of potential future competition
without discontinuity. The fact that growth stage when companies start
implementing product differentiation strategies as a result of increasing
new entrants to the market can help companies to shape their product
line. In this stage, the company can eventually enlarge its product line by
adding new versions of the product in the mix. Potential product prob-
lems in introduction stage are also fixed by the growth stage and that
eventually provides company’s clearer and better outlook for the future
of product.
Most of the company’s main struggle is to find a way to extend the
product’s life so they can reach continuity. In this context, continuous
“product modification” sits at the heart of product life extension. If
company doesn’t think about new product development, the experience
learnt from previous products and benefits gained from market shares
created with previous marketing efforts will be all wasted. Product life
extension (or “continuity” in this discussion’s context) can be reached by
focusing continuously on product development and modification before
decline stage as early as growth stage. A new version or newly devel-
oped product is introduced to the markets when the old product declines
and sales numbers pick up where it ends from the old product. When
company introduces new versions of the old product in a sequential
30 S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 3.7 Innovation discontinuity and competitiveness (Source http://fac

adetreatments.blogspot.com/2010/11/life-cycle-of-blog.html#links; https://
gongos.com/tl/how-disruptions-are-born-and-how-it-applies-to-the-market-res
earch-discipline/; http://innovisio.blogspot.com/2012/12/capturing-opport
unity-indisruption.html)

order, the company get into constant product development which is also
called “generational replacement” (Lilien et al., 1992). The goal is to
reach continues and sustainable profitability by modifying the product
parallel to keep changing market needs and thus extending its life every
step. These kinds of product life cycles are especially common in elec-
tronic markets as new and more improved versions of electronic products
constantly flow into markets.
Alternatively, company might prefer to modify the market instead of
product. When product reaches its decline, the company can introduce
the same product to the markets where it is new or can be perceived as
new. This is called “market modification”. The goal is to find a market
where product is not introduced before, thus it is still new to the market
so the product can go through the similar PLC stages and still generated
profits and continuous its circle. This strategy is widely used in interna-
tional markets. The product is exported to a country where it is indeed
a new product or is seen as a new product. Another strategy is to find
other uses of the product that can provide new use and thus create new
market (i.e., bicycles could be used as a recreational vehicle in touristic
 3 PRODUCT 31

places while as a main transportation vehicle in big cities in another

country/region). This could also be conceptualized as “usage modifi-
cation”. Consumers’ different ways of usage and expectations from the
product can help the company to reach sales and profit maximization if
the company is able to group such differences.

Product Segmentation
The purpose of segmentation is to split consumers into similar and
homogenous groups. If there are consumption similarities among
consumers, it can be assumed that they can also respond to similar
way to the 4P elements. Thus, if marketers can find similarities among
consumers and develop right 4P combinations for each consumer group
accordingly, the company should theoretically receive similar responses to
each selected 4P combinations for each group consumers. This is called
“product segmentation”. In other words, if a group of consumers is
more responsive to price changes rather than promotion campaigns, then
company needs to focus on pricing rather than promotion. Thus, the
major advantage of segmentation is to reduce the waste of unnecessary
use of marketing mix elements by splitting consumers into homogenous
groups in terms of consumers’ responses to the selected marketing mix
elements. The assumption behind this product segmentation approach is
that all the consumers in the product segments are equal each other in
terms of the specific segmentation or splitting factor. This is pictured in
the first graph of Fig. 3.8.
However, the recent changes in marketing with the advent of the
Internet revealed that each consumer has distinct tastes and needs, thus
each consumer, in fact, should be assumed to be a single segment.
“Every consumer is a segment” understanding is a natural result of the
Internet revolution as each consumer is empowered with the Internet
technology and can voice their distinct needs and make enough noise
to lead to crowed in various directions in the digital markets. Thus, the
major assumption is in the digital markets that each consumer is not
equal each other in terms of any segmentation factors and hence each
consumer should be treated with distinct marketing mix elements for
higher consumer’s engagement and response rates to each 4P elements.
This, in turn, maximizes the marketing returns as also pictured in ‘new
product segmentation’ graph in Fig. 3.8.
32 S. U. KUCUK

Traditional Product Segmentation

Consumer 1
Consumer 2
4P .
.
.
Consumer n
Feedback

Assumption: Consumer 1 = Consumer 2 = …= Consumer n

New Product Segmentation

4P1 Consumer 1

4P2 Consumer 2

4Pn Consumer n

Assumption: Consumer 1 ≠ Consumer 2 ≠ …≠ Consumer n

Fig. 3.8 Traditional and new product segmentations

In new product segmentation philosophy, each consumer’s feedback

can be better valued in company’s marketing strategies. This, in fact, indi-
cates a new shift from market valuation from product segmentation to
consumer valuation in today’s modern marketing. The success factor of
new product segmentation idea is possible because of the continuously
flowing feedback and information from consumers in real time. In tradi-
tional product segmentation, it is not clear how much of an individual
consumer is actually influenced by the specific marketing efforts as it takes
 3 PRODUCT 33

a really long time to get feedback from consumer segments in traditional

segmentation formats. Thus, it is not easy to know how much of the
marketing efforts are wasted in a specific product segment in traditional
world as all the consumers are assumed to be equal in terms of specific
segmentation factor. Thus, it is much easier for company to develop a rela-
tionship with a single consumer and segment—which eventually increases
the value of a consumer rather than a segment as pictured in Fig. 3.9.
In traditional product segmentation, the interaction with consumers is
limited and interrupted (thus not continuous) as it takes a long time to
collect consumer feedback over a stretch of time. Furthermore, segmenta-
tion value is measured with group of consumers’ willingness to purchase
the products through discrete time periods as indicated in the first figure
of Fig. 3.9. With the digital revolution, consumer value gains more
importance rather than segment value as companies can easily establish
continuous and individualized interactions with consumers. Consumers’
feedback is collected easily and instantly, thus companies are required to
interact with consumers continuously to provide a real time solution to
each consumer. Because of increasing intensity and amount of consumer
interactions, companies need to value each consumer’s value effectively
so that they can use their 4P elements efficiently. This mentality shifts in
segmentation from group segment to singular segment, in fact, created

Segment Value Consumer Value

Consumer 1
S3
Consumer 2
S2
S1 Consumer 3

Information Information
(Discrete Interaction with Segment) (Continuous Interaction with Consumer)

A ∞
Segment Value = ∑S i =1
i Consumer Value = ∫ ln(C )
i
i =1

Fig. 3.9 Segment and consumer value comparison

34 S. U. KUCUK

a new marketing concept: “consumer lifetime value”. Each consumer’s

willingness to spend with company during a time period is calculated and
consumers are rewarded based on such calculations accordingly. Such shift
from the traditional market format represented by discrete mathematical
series while today’s consumer value-based segmentation approaches are
represented with integral function of consumer interaction as pictured in
Fig. 3.9.

Services
Although product is discussed as physical product in previous sections,
product can also be services or ideas or general intangible entities. In
fact, most of the products are a combination of both physical products
and services. This, in turn, makes it difficult to determine how much a
product gains its value from tangibles or intangibles elements. Determi-
nation of tangibility–intangibility features of a product is important as this
evaluation eventually will determine to build right value elements with
right marketing strategy to attract and influence consumer decisions. If
a product has more tangibles than intangibles features, that is defined
as “good-dominant product” (such as automobile) or otherwise “service-
dominant product” (such as nursing or teaching) as pictured in Fig. 3.10.
But, what about a café store? Is it a good-dominant or service-dominant
product? It is difficult to answer this question as services and physical
features of products can almost play equal importance in evaluating the
product and its quality.
It can be easier to evaluate the quality of physical goods such as t-
shirts, jeans, etc. This, in turn, is conceptualized as “search quality” as
it is easy to assess the product quality before consumption. However,
because services are generally produced and consumed at the same time,
it is almost impossible to assess the services quality unless consumer has
previous experience with the product. For example, consumer is not
able to assess the quality of a meal in a restaurant unless s/he had a
meal at the very same restaurant. This is called “experience quality” as
also pictured in Fig. 3.9. On the other hand, there are some prod-
ucts that consumers can’t be able to assess the quality of product even
after purchase. A patient can’t necessarily know how well his kidney
surgery went as most of the consumers don’t have enough knowledge
and experience. This is conceptualized as “credence quality”. The harder
to evaluate product and service qualities, the more needed to develop
 3 PRODUCT 35

Good-Dominant
TRUST

Auto-Repair

Surgery
Haircut
Easy to Difficult to
Evaluate Evaluate
Clothing

House

Restaurant

Service-Dominant

Search Quality Experience Credence

Quality Quality

Fig. 3.10 Evaluation of goods and services (Source Inspired by Valarie A.

Zeithaml [1991]) Author’s note: I used/combined specific elements of Zeithaml’s
(1991) work…red highlighted elements are my own contribution to the figure!
(Color figure online)

trust building relationship between consumer and service provider. If you

have a surgery, you want to make sure that you are in the right hands. If
a product/service is higher in search qualities, consumer trust to service
provider can be very limited. But, product/service is high in experience
and credence qualities, consumers demand trustworthy relationship with
service providers. Trust building communications with consumers in these
situations help to eliminate the risks perceived by the tangible nature of
services. Most of the time, company’s services are directly associated with
service provider. In other words, service provider’s (or employee) ability
to deliver the promised service experiences successfully will determine the
consumer satisfaction. This, in turn, increases the importance of “internal
36 S. U. KUCUK

marketing” an additional marketing effort targeting employees so that

they can represent the company-to-consumers.
Service providers can’t reach marketing success and consumer satisfac-
tion unless they don’t know how to utilize the intangible and tangible
features of products in their marketing strategies.
Consumers will stay with the company as long as they receive excep-
tional and satisfactory treatment. In other words, satisfied consumers
will stay loyal to the company. Thus, service providers desperately need
to create consumer loyalty both in attitudinal and behavioral levels by
delivering satisfactory service experiences to consumers.
Research revealed that 5% increase in consumer loyalty in some indus-
tries may lead an increase in profit from 25 to 85% (Reichheld &
Sasser, 1990). Another research also showed that although satisfactory
consumers feel more loyal to the service provider, this number jumps
exponentially to 100% loyalty level when the satisfaction is higher than
that (Heskett et al., 1994). Consumers who are extremely dissatisfied
don’t hesitate against the service provider and can create a negative atti-
tude against the company in the market. Thus, service providers should
extend their effort to create apostle consumers (very satisfied thus very
loyal consumers). When consumer satisfaction is low or medium levels,
the consumer loyalty could also suffer. The ultimate loyalty is reach when
only very satisfactory service and experience is provided to consumers.
In short, moderate level consumer satisfaction is not enough anymore in
today’s digital markets as every little dissatisfaction can be easily detected
by millions. Thus, very high-level consumer satisfaction or “ultimate satis-
faction” is required for ultimate loyalty and marketing success in the
services market.

Conclusion
Without a product/service idea that has the potential to satisfy consumer
needs and hence provide a value to consumers, there will be no marketing.
The product/service is the starting point of every marketing activity. In
other words, products and services sit at the heart of every marketing
activity and strategy. If a company can’t innovate new products or develop
products or service ideas, there would be no need for pricing, promotion,
and place or distribution. When the company successfully introduces a
product/service, the rest of marketing mix elements (promotion, price,
and place) need to work around the product and deeply coordinate
 3 PRODUCT 37

with it to extend the product’s life and hence company’s revenue and
profitability.
In the macro-level, every economy’s competitiveness could also be
measured by its innovativeness, and hence how many new and innova-
tive products/services produced for their consumers. Thus, successfully
created products/services are not only companies but also countries’
economic lifeblood, hence determine countries’ economic and social
wellbeing. Product is also major satisfaction source even some product-
related services could fail once in a while. Successful products can further
define the company and its business philosophy. Product can change the
consumption habits and create new values and social belief systems. All
these only possible if company can understand the importance of product
innovation, development and diffusion processes, product life cycles, and
extension approach as well as product segmentation strategies as discussed
with figures and graphs in this chapter.

Notes
1. Moore (1991).
2. Kano (1984).

References
Christensen, M. C. (1992). Exploring the limits of the technology S-Curve. Part
I: Component of technologies. Production and Operations Management, 1(4),
334–357.
Heskett, J. L., Jones, T. O., Loveman, G. W., Sasser, W. E., & Schlesinger, L.
A. (1994). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review,
72(2), 164–174.
Hisrich, D. R., & Peters, M. P. (1991). Marketing decisions for new and mature
products. Macmillan Publishing Company.
Kano, N. (1984). Attractive quality and must-be quality. Hinshitsu (quality, the
Journal of Japanese Society for Quality Control), 14, 39–48.
Lilien, G. L., Kotler, P., & Sridhar Moorthy, K. (1992). Marketing models
(pp. 513–514). Prentice-Hall.
Moore, A. G. (1991). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling high-tech products
to mainstream customers. Harper Business Essentials.
Reichheld, F. F., & Earl Sasser, W. (1990). Zero defections: Quality comes to
services. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 105.
38 S. U. KUCUK

Roberston, S. T. (1993, October 15). How to reduce market penetration cycle

times. Sloan Management Review, 35, 87–87
Rogers, M. E. (1962; 1983). Diffusion of innovations. Free Press.
Schwarze, R., & Wein, T. (2005). Is the market classification of risk always
efficient? Evidence from German third party motor insurance. University of
Luneburg Working Paper Series in Economics No. 3, www.uni-lueneburg.de/
vwl/papers ISSN 1860 – 5508. http://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_u
pload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/wp_03_Upload.pdf
Urban, G. L., & Hauser, J. R. (1993). Design and marketing of new products.
Prentice Hall.
Zeithaml, V. A. (1991). How consumer evaluation processes differ between
goods and services. In J. H. Donnelly & W. R. George (Eds.), Marketing
sciences. American Marketing Association.
 CHAPTER 4

Price

Price is the main exchange medium in any transaction. Without right

price, exchange can’t exist. Moreover, price is strategically the most flex-
ible marketing mix element. Put simply, you can change the price easily
and immediately anytime you want, but you can’t change your product,
promotion, and/or branding strategy and distribution or product avail-
ability overnight. Thus, price can be seen as one of the most competitive
marketing tools among all marketing mix elements. Finally, it is the only
marketing mix element that can generate revenue and hence borrows
some essential conceptualization from economics literature.
There are a couple of important components directly and indirectly
impact price and pricing decisions. One of the most important elements
is the demand of the product, cost of manufacturing the product and
market structure, and finally consumers’ perception of the value elements
of the product in compared to other alternatives available in the market.
In classical economics, price is discussed as the main exchange element
of value and assumed that every consumer makes a rational decision
and prefers the cheaper products to maximize their benefits. In other
words, classical economics doesn’t recognize emotional and momentarily
decision-making processes. On the other hand, marketing theory, in addi-
tion, assumes that consumers’ product valuations and exchange decisions
are under influence of psychology and sociology, thus consumers’ percep-
tion of product benefits and/or value elements can also change person to

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 39

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_4
40 S. U. KUCUK

Roof
PSYCHOLOGIC PRICING

Ceiling

Stay
Profit Area
Around DEMAND-BASED PRICING
Here

Bottom

Stay Out of Loss Area COST-BASED PRICING

Here

Basement

Fig. 4.1 The fundamentals of pricing

person and could be momentarily and emotional, which is also defined as

“psychologic pricing”. In this context, price in marketing theory can be
defined as many interacting elements in a functional form as follows:
 
Price = f Demand, Cost, Value Perception

From a visual perspective, cost-based pricing indicates a bottom or funda-

mentals of pricing. Most of the time, a company builds upon its pricing
strategy based on this basement-level value elements. Depending on
demand in the market, the company implements a demand-based pricing
and hence leaves the loss area and reaches profitability as also pictured in
Fig. 4.1.
Cost-based pricing indicates how low you can go as a company or
where to stop on price reduction. It simply tells the company’s price
bottom or likely “break-even” point. On the other hand, demand-based
pricing indicates how high you can go in your price and determines your
price ceiling. Price ceiling is also determined by a concept called “price
elasticity” (which will be discussed in the following sections in detail).
Simply put, if you increase the price and the demand for the product is
still high you are under the price ceiling, so you still have room to increase
price. In some cases, cost-based pricing has not much impact on pricing
but on consumers’ emotions. At this point, with some fine-tuning strate-
gies, company could further increase price a little bit more, and hence
psychological pricing tactics make selling products easier. Although such
 4 PRICE 41

pricing techniques work in this sequential order as explained above, some-

times company needs to go “loss area” when the product is in decline
stage in PLC and, hence dying. Or the company needs to stay in “loss
area” for a while to gain a competitive advantage against incumbents.
Therefore, all these pricing strategies should be discussed one by one to
better understand and develop a better company’s pricing strategy.

Demand-based Pricing
Every pricing exploration in classical economics starts with demand anal-
ysis. Without knowing consumer demand for a product in various price
levels, no business can be able to calculate its future revenue and profits
streams which are detrimental to the business’ existence. This is a basic
optimization process that enlightening the company in which price levels
should operate to maximize its revenue. One of the common ways to
calculate revenue is through understanding the demand curve of the
product. Company’s revenue can change dramatically at different price
levels as the quantity demanded to products changes, respectively, as well.
This is pictured in the first graph of Fig. 4.2.
In Fig. 4.2, various price and quantity amounts are indicated with
letters A, B, and C. In general, if the product is priced higher, the demand
to product will be less (A) as indicated in the Quantity axis. On the other
hand, if the product is priced lower, then the demand to the product
goes higher (C) as everybody wants to benefit from the values created by

Price Revenue Total Revenue

Curve
B
Demand Curve
A

B A C

C
Q Quantity
Marginal Revenue
Curve (MR)

Fig. 4.2 Demand and revenue curves

42 S. U. KUCUK

the product with lower prices. Companies try to determine the best price
throughout the price–quantity continuum (from A to C). In this context,
company should pick the price or price ranges where the revenue is maxi-
mized [Revenue = (Price) × (Quantity)]. Company’s revenue streams
can be easily derived from the demand curve. The revenue curve as indi-
cated in the second graph of Fig. 4.2 can be reached. The second graph
shows a concave (second degree polynomial) with a maximum point of
“B”. Thus, it is clear from this graph that company’s revenue reaches the
highest point at the price level B. Therefore, company should determine
the price of product at or around price level at the point B based on the
given demand curve/function.
The same results can be found through an analysis called Marginal
Analysis. Marginal analysis helps us to calculate Marginal Revenue (MR)
which indicates the revenue change selling one additional unit at a specific
price level. In other word, MR analysis reveals the marginal changes in
each price and revenue level. MR can be calculated by taking the deriva-
tives of the second degree of polynomial revenue curve pictured in the
second graph of Fig. 4.2. Derivation of the revenue curve eventually
gives us another linear line as similar shape to the demand curve. Thus,
if a demand equation (with a negative slope) can be defined as P = a
− b*Q , the MR line, then, will be P = a − 2bQ . In other words,
MR equation has the same intercept and twice the slope as the firm’s
price equation as also pictured with the dotted lines in the first graph in
Fig. 4.2. This economic generalization can provide conveniences when
especially calculating the profit maximization price and pricing levels in
marketing.
Company’s exchange value can also be determined through exam-
ining the interactions between supply and demand in markets. In general
terms, supply represents “sellers” or “company” while demand represents
“consumer” in these kinds of analysis. The interplay between supply and
demand eventually sets product’s exchange value in markets where seller
and buyers agree on. In other words, price is used as a communication
tool. While buyer or consumer signals his/her willingness to pay, seller
signals the value of the offerings and willingness to sell.1 As a result of this
negotiation and bargaining, markets determine the true value of products.
If a product is produced less than its demand, the price of the product
would eventually be higher than expected. The scarcity of demanded
products eventually increases the product’s price more. On the other
hand, if a product is produced more than needed or demanded in the
market, eventually consumers have more and cheaper options available
everywhere in the market, and this eventually makes it difficult to sell
 4 PRICE 43

Price
Fig. 4.3 Supply
Demand–supply and
price equilibrium

Price Equilibrium

Demand

Quantity

the markets and hence lower the price of the product in the market.
Market price reaches an equilibrium when supply and demand intercepts
as pictured in Fig. 4.3.
In other words, market determines the price based on consumer
demand and availability of the product in the market or supply. Compa-
nies prefer to operate around the market price equilibrium to attract right
number of consumers. If a company set its price higher than the price
equilibrium, most of the consumers prefer to not to buy it as there are
more alternatives available at a lower price levels for the same or similar
products in the market. If the product is not sold because of the higher
prices, there will be more products available in the markets (aka “Supply
Surplus”). On the other hand, if a company sets the price lower than
the price equilibrium, most of the consumers will go to this lower price
as consumers can profit from this transaction (aka “Consumer Surplus”).
Thus, the company needs to set its price around price equilibrium so that
its loss will be minimized for a long-standing presence in the market.

Price Elasticity
Another way to determine the product price is by looking at price demand
elasticity. Price elasticity tells you how much you need to, or you can
change the price without disturbing the consumer demand. In other
words, price elasticity (E p ) shows how responsive is demanded to price
changes and hence measures of sensitivity of quantity to price. This,
mathematically, can be formulated as follows (where E p refers to price
elasticity):
   
E p = % Change Q / % ChangeP = [Q/Q]/[P/P]
44 S. U. KUCUK

As explained in Fig. 3.1, price and quantity are negatively correlated, thus
price elasticity comes out always negative naturally. But, in general, elas-
ticity is referred without negative sign in the industry, thus it is wise to
use absolute value of elasticity in formulations as follows:
 
If If  E p  > 1 demand is elastic
If If  E p  < 1 demand is inelastic
If If E p = 1 demand is unitary elastic

Thus, if quantity-demanded changes more than price changes, price elas-

ticity of demand can be said elastic. On the other hand, if quantity
changes less than price changes, it can be said that consumers are insensi-
tive to price changes thus price is inelastic. Finally, if the price change and
quantity change is at the same level, the price elasticity equals one and
it is called unitary elastic. Such classification of various price elasticities is
also pictured in a graphical format in Fig. 4.4.
As pictured in Fig. 4.4, the demand’s price elasticity is inelastic between
the point of B and C as price increase from P 2 to P 3 doesn’t make
too big difference in quantity-demanded; while it is elastic between the

Price

A
P4
Ep=0

B
P3
Ep<1 (Inelastic)

P2 C
Ep >1 (Elastic)

D Ep = ∞ E
P1

Quantity
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Fig. 4.4 Price elasticity

 4 PRICE 45

points of C and D as price increase from P 1 to P 2 makes a big differ-

ence in quantity-demanded. Demand is infinitively inelastic between the
points of A and B (where Ep = 0); and finally, it is infinitively elastic
between the points of D and E (where Ep = ∞). In infinitive elasticity
level, company cannot influence the price whereas the opposite is true in
infinitively inelastic range.
From marketing point of view, if company can find where the price is
inelastic, then it can increase the price to the limits of elasticity so that
it can maximize its profits. In other words, price-inelastic consumers are
still willing to buy the product even though the price is increased, that,
in turn, increases company’s profit. Thus, the company needs to deter-
mine in which price level elasticity is high and low to determine profit
maximizing pricing decision. This approach, in fact, can help company to
develop a segmentation strategy based on price elasticity. Furthermore,
the product features can influence price elasticity. If there are more substi-
tutes of the product in markets, that might increase consumers’ price
sensitivity and hence price elasticity as consumers can easily replace the
product with close substitutions. On the other hand, product requires
complements can have price elasticity as the demand of the product
depends on the complementary products. For example, iPhone has a low-
price elasticity as there are many applications you need to run in the phone
in order to reach efficiency. Thus, if the iPhone’s price increases users are
less likely to switch to another brand because of all the information is
stored in the complementary apps.2 That eventually keeps iPhone prices
inelastic so that Apple can easily maximize its profits.
A company’s price changes not only influence consumers’ decisions
but also other companies’ sales. In general, when substitute products are
in price competition (such as McDonald’s and Burger King), the price
changes in McDonald’s might also influence the demand of Burger King
as these two close substitutes compete in the same market. This is called
cross-price elasticity. If a company only measures the price elasticity of
its own product, the company will miss competitive reactions and their
impacts on price changes. Thus, cross-price elasticity helps a company to
understand the possible changes in competitors’ demand structure as well
as market share. This elasticity measure could also be used to understand
the level of price competition in the markets.
Similarly, among all of these various price elasticity measures, a
company can use “residual price elasticity” which includes all the poten-
tial changes in account. The residual price elasticity is the combination of
46 S. U. KUCUK

Our Price
Change
E2
Competitor Reaction E1
Elasticity Own Price Elasticity

E3
Cross Elasticity
Competitor Our Volume
Price Change Change

Residual Elasticity = E1 + (E2*E3)

Fig. 4.5 Residual elasticity (Source Farris et al. [2006])

“regular price elasticity” measure (or “company’s own price elasticity”),

“cross-price elasticity”, and finally “competitive reaction elasticity”, which
takes account of competitors’ reactions to the company’s price changes.
The calculation of the residual elasticity is also pictured in Fig. 4.5.
Residual elasticity, in this context, helps marketing managers to explain
the potential difficulties to understand potential changes in prices in the
markets. One of the major take-way from residual elasticity is the one elas-
ticity measure is closeted to a realistic price change detector. Moreover, it
is a strong indicator of competitive reactions in the markets.
Overall, price elasticity can change as a result of the availability of
substitute and complementary products in the market as well as product
durability and the availability of the products another potential usage. In
short, any influences that sit at the heart of consumers’ product or brand
switching and searching behaviors eventually affect price and demand
elasticity.

Cost-based Pricing
Every company needs to calculate their costs of producing the products
and services and determine their profit margins based on these calcula-
tions. Needless to say, companies need to set the selling price over costs
so that they can generate profit for their survival. Thus, a company must
calculate all the cost elements affecting their products before determining
selling price.
Every company basically has three major cost components—“Fixed
Costs”, “Variable Costs”, and “Total Costs”. Fixed costs are the cost
 4 PRICE 47

elements that don’t depend on production volume or are independent of

outcomes such as buildings, rent, machinery, etc. Such costs don’t change
in short run and stay constant most of the time. On the other hand, vari-
able costs are the costs elements directly related to production volume
and vary with the production output. Such costs elements are expenses
of buying raw material for production, utilities, etc. The variable costs
increase in consistent rates when especially a company starts increasing
production capacity and starts producing more products. Finally, the last
cost element is Total Costs which is the summation of Fixed and Vari-
able Costs (Total Costs = Fixed Costs + Variable Costs). All these costs
elements need to be kept in mind before setting a product/service price.
Such cost structure eventually indicates above which price level company
should operate for profitability. Such determination could be possible
with Break-Even analysis.

Break-even Analysis for Pricing

The company needs to set the unit price with such cost structure in mind.
In other words, the company needs to know how many products to sell
to be able to pay its own costs and thus before finally making profit. This
is called Break-Even analysis. Break-Even analysis is critical for a company
to set its markup price that reflects its sales targets and strategic goals.
Break-Even can be calculated for a specific price as follows:

Breakeven Volume = (Fixed Costs)/(Price−Unit Variable Costs)

The quantity volume indicated with break-even analysis tells how many
units of products the company needs to sale in order to start making
profit [Profit = Total Revenue − Total Costs]. In other words, all the
loss and costs are paid before break-even point in order to start making
profit. This is the point where Total Cost equals to Total Revenue. This
is also the point where Total Cost curve intercepts with Total Revenue
curve as pictured in Fig. 4.6.
Break-even point or the necessary amount of product sale to profit can
be changed highly depend on the selected price. If company wants to
reach break-even quantity earlier, it needs to increase prices or vice versa.
Thus, break-even quantity can dramatically change company’s pricing
strategy.
48 S. U. KUCUK

$
Total Revenue

PROFIT Total Costs

Break-Even Point

Fixed Costs LOSS

Quantity

Fig. 4.6 Break-even pricing

Once the company starts making profit, the next question is to how
the company can maximize its profits under the similar cost structures.
This requires a detailed cost analysis. The company needs to analyze how
its cost structure changes in each unit of production. In other words,
company needs to calculate Marginal Costs (the costs of producing one
additional unit) to see at which level it can reduce its own production
costs in order to find a profit maximizing price level. Marginal Costs
generally shows an early downward slope and rising slope. At the begin-
ning, company’s production costs generally reduce along the way the
company learns how to effectively produce the products. That shows
itself as a downward slope line in Marginal Costs. In order to keep up
with demand, the company needs to increase the production capacity,
for example, by hiring more worker. At some point hiring one additional
worker eventually decreases the production as it gets difficult to orga-
nize employees to reach efficient production levels. This eventually causes
an increase in Marginal Costs as depicted as increasing a linear line in
Marginal Costs curve in Fig. 4.7a. This phenomenon is conceptualized as
diminishing returns.
As also discussed earlier, Marginal Revenue curve is a down-slope line
similar to demand curve (Fig. 4.2), and the intersection of Marginal
Revenue and Marginal Cost indicates the price and cost level where
company maximizes its profits. This can also be seen in Fig. 4.7b where
total revenue goes over (or exceeds) the total costs line. In total, this also
indicates the company’s profit and loss zones in the figure. Thus, company
 4 PRICE 49

Unit Price
Cost

MC

(a)

MR
Quantity
Total Revenue
And Cost

Total Cost

LOSS

(b)
PROFIT Total Revenue

LOSS

Quantity

Fig. 4.7 Marginal cost and marginal revenue

should operate within the right cost and price combination level where it
keeps the company profitable.
The cost structure is under influence of the market structure as well.
In monopolistic markets, a company has potentially substantial control
over market price of its product, and profit maximization can be easily
reached for the expense of consumers. However, in oligopolistic markets,
such price control is under influence of competitors and sometimes is
shared among a few producers in the same market. Thus, the companies
in oligopolistic markets have moderate to substantial control of market
prices and hence their profit levels. On the other hand, in perfectly
competitive markets, no company in the market has control over market
prices and market itself determines the price as discussed in Fig. 4.3.
In these markets, profits will be shrunk into smaller pieces possible
depending on the number of companies in the market. Therefore, such
50 S. U. KUCUK

aforementioned prices and costs levels can also be under effects of other
companies’ pricing decisions as discussed in detail in the residual elasticity
section.

Perception-based Pricing
Price is an indicator of an economic value created by the company. Thus,
price is used as an important product information source and quality indi-
cator by many consumers especially when there is an uncertainty in the
shopping process. Purchase decisions can be made majorly on the value
elements introduced by the marketer. This is a very different view from
classical economists’ pricing philosophy but is well-studied by consumer
behaviorists and psychologists as well as behavioral economists.
Value can simply be formulized as a function of perceived benefits
expected to be gained by every dollar spent for the product. Thus, it
can be formulized as follows:

Value = (Perceived Benefits)/(Price)

Every consumer eventually tries to maximize its benefits while trying to

pay less. One way to increase value in the eyes of consumers is through
influencing consumers’ perception of potential benefits they can get from
the product. This can be mostly accomplished through media advertise-
ments and other promotion tools. Most of these perceived benefits could
be intangible which comes with the brand and its associations. However,
the marketer needs to know what the value elements that can be asso-
ciated with the product/brand that makes consumers feel happy to buy
it.
Sometimes, consumers see value in product quality or use the product
as a social class indicator. Sometimes consumers buy the expensive
product just because they believe that the higher the price the better
the product quality is. Thus, consumer’s value understanding, in some
situations, might have nothing to do with product’s market price but
consumer’s perception of value and benefits go beyond sheer economic
value. Such perceptional value elements are generally created with the
help of other marketing mix elements such as media advertisements and
promotion.
The most well-known perceptional consumer value association is price
and product quality. Many consumers think that a product’s price can be
a strong indicator of its quality. Consumers can classify product’s quality
based on its price especially there is uncertainty in the shopping process
 4 PRICE 51

such as stock-out situation. Although such price-quality link can be true

for most of the products, this effect can strongly be observed in especially
specialty products such as wine, clothing, etc. For example, in a Stanford
University experiment, the same wine was tagged with different prices and
served to ordinary consumers. Consumers are asked if they can decide
which wine has a better quality. Most of the consumers thought that the
wine with a higher price tag has the better quality even though the served
wine was the same wine all the time.3
This potential link can be stronger for some specific products but
can be less valid for some other products as explained by Corstjens and
Corstjens (1995: 144) “Value Corridor” conceptualization in Fig. 4.8.
Inspired by the Corstjens and Corstjens (1995)’s “Value Corridor”
graph,4 I put my own version of classification which is slightly different
than Corstjens and Corstjens’s, 1995 classification as shown in Fig. 4.8.
Every company wants to be above the value corridor (highlighted
with a red arrow in Fig. 4.8) and perceived to be good quality. Even
though the company can provide good quality products there is still a

VALUE
CORRIDOR
High
●
GOOD VALUE
National brands
Perceived QUALITY

●
Mimic Brands

●
Cheap Brands
● POOR VALUE
Private labels

Low

Low PRICE High

Fig. 4.8 Value corridor-price and quality relationship (Inspired from Corstjens
and Corstjens [1995]. Author’s note This figure was published as this way in the
first edition of this book)
52 S. U. KUCUK

danger that the company’s product could also be perceived poor quality
if the price doesn’t reflect the real quality of the product in the eyes of
consumers. Thus, no company wants to be seen below the value corridor
and perceived to be poor quality as pictured in Fig. 4.8. In the bottom of
the corridor, there are private labels which are low-quality and low-priced
products since they are produced by retailers rather than manufacturers.
Because private labels have less brand power and have only lean on distri-
bution and in-store merchandising support, they are more likely preferred
by price sensitive and perhaps store loyal consumers. Following, there
are manufacturers who produce cheap products in the corridor because
of their relatively lower brand power in the markets. “Mimic Brands”,
which are the brands who follow the major national brands by copycatting
their philosophy, come next. Since they are following the original brands,
they could not be perceived as leading and original but rather imitations
and hence less quality brands. Finally, well-known national brands offer
the highest prices since their strong brand power in the markets. These
brands are recognized by all and are seen as highest quality perhaps the
reason they created this product category and lead the industry with right
marketing strategies. The value corridor eventually sets the expectations
based on price-quality relationship. And, if a consumer finds a higher
quality product with a lower price option, then consumers would see this
as good value and perhaps purchase this product-brand easily otherwise
see poor quality and goes to other options as also indicated good and
poor value zones in Fig. 4.8. Overall, if consumers read higher prices as
higher quality sign, then company can set its price higher than expected
to maximize its profits. Similarly, a company that doesn’t have excep-
tional product quality can even set its price at the level with the products
perceived to be high quality. By setting the product price at the same level
with high-quality products, the company signals that its product is at the
same quality level with the one so that deserved to be valued at the same
level. This is called “prestige pricing” and it helps company to maximize
its profits if it sets its price at the same level with high-quality products.
A similar strategy can also be used for the products in the same product
line. Marketer can put prices in a rank order for the products in the same
product line as also depicted in Fig. 4.9.
The purpose of this pricing strategy is to give consumers’ quality clue
for the products in the same product line. This pricing can also indicate
which product has better and additional features compared to other prod-
ucts in the same product line. For example, if you want to buy a car you
 4 PRICE 53

Price ($)
Fig. 4.9 Price lining
Product AC
P3
Product AB
P2
Product AA

P1
Quantity

look at the standard product’s base price without any additional features.
If you want to add more horse power or want sport version, you probably
pay more than the regular standard product. Thus, product’s price can be
lined in a logical order for the various version of the same product in
the product line. Price lining can eventually reduce consumers and sales’
personnel potential confusion created by various value elements. Further-
more, each price level can potentially indicate different market segments
and the products’ price elasticity accordingly. Thus, price lining can even-
tually help the company to organize its operations (such as stocking and
inventory) in a better way to reach operational efficiency and reduce many
shopping risks perceived by consumers.
For new products, the pricing strategy can be a difficult task. Initially,
company can start setting the price high to test the potential demand.
This pricing approach is a common strategy for new-to-world products
and/or for the existing products with new features. In other word, the
company skims the best demand first in the market and lowers the price
along down to the demand curve as also pictured with red lines in
Fig. 4.10.
This is a similar pricing mentality (sliding down the demand curve until
finding the right price range) the economists use while determining price
equilibrium with the changes in supply. In other words, price skimming is
always a good strategy when the demand of product is higher than supply.
This can be a good pricing strategy especially when the company has a
valuable brand with strong patents which eventually limits the competi-
tors enter into the market. From marketing point of view, this is also
a better strategy to recover major product development expenses in the
early stages of the product life cycle. But, the question is how much lower
price should get. The lower the price gets, the lower the quality could be
54 S. U. KUCUK

Price Price

Initial Price Final Price

Penetration Pricing
Brand Image Cost
Price Skimming

Second Price Second Price

Brand Image Cost

Final Price Initial Price

Time

Fig. 4.10 Price skimming and penetration pricing

perceived. This, in turn, hurts product’s quality perception and brand

image in markets as also pictured with green lines in Fig. 4.10. That
potential image erosion caused by the sudden price reduction can cost
companies more advertisement money to change the products’ quality
perception into a positive one in the long run.
Alternatively, the company can enter the market with the lowest price
possible and increase its price gradually when the demand start picking
up indicated with blue lines in Fig. 4.10. This initial low price can help
company reach greater market share. This is a very good strategy if the
company is focusing on mass markets and if the demand curve is elastic.
Low initial price can also deter potential competitors to enter the market
as they assume that company is operating very low profit margins as
pictured with bold lines in Fig. 4.10.
Another very influential perceptional pricing strategy is aimed at
impacting consumers’ way of visual perception and how to organize such
visual price information in their mind, or shortly playing with consumers’
sensory perceptions. This is also called “sensory pricing”. The most well-
known pricing strategy is ending prices with 9, 99, or 95. People tend to
read the first number and reach conclusion that the price is actually will
be around the first number. When they see price is $1.99, they read the
first digit of the price which assume that the price is around one dollar but
in fact it is about two dollars. The one cent discount in price can increase
the sale considerably by rising consumer’s willingness to buy. If company
 4 PRICE 55

prices its products/services with zero ends, such as $2.00, or $30.00,

that can also send consumers a message that the company is actually a
high-quality product. Similarly, a Cornell study found that introducing
prices only with numbers rather than with dollar signs intends to spend
more.5 The logic is when consumers see only a number, they might not
associate that number with money so they are more willing to spend that
amount subliminally. Finally, another psychological pricing strategy is to
set the amount of product/service purchase at a certain price level. If
a company restricts the purchase amount at a specific price level (e.g., 2
per customer), then consumer thinks that the product is highly demanded
and hence stimulates the consumers to buy the product and perhaps more
than planned amounts in many cases.6 I remember buying a Lego set
for my son just because I saw that per-customer information attached to
the product and worried that I might be missing something hot in Lego
world and felt pressure to buy the Lego set just for that.
Although these sensory and psychological pricing techniques can
increase company’s sales numbers, but ethicality of such pricing strategies
is controversial as many consumers are not aware of why they are making
these decisions. Company’s reputation could negatively be impacted later
if the consumers realize that they make unconscious decisions based on
price.

Conclusion
Price, as one of the most flexible marketing mix elements, provides
the most concrete information piece and direction to both companies
and consumers in this abstract marketing universe. Because price carries
more concrete information rather than other marketing mix elements, the
value can be easily negotiated. Each party shares their understanding and
perception of the value they want to give up to other, thus, the price
can also be defined as the product of company–consumer negotiation of
value. However, it is not easy to reach exchangeable value levels among
market actors. Let alone discussing price between two sides, it is very hard
to determine what millions can accept at a specific price level. That is a
difficult task on company’s shoulders. If they can find the right value level,
they will lose many consumers. But, if company understands mass value
evaluations and determine the price in the right level, that will extend
the company’s existence in the markets. In this context, although many
companies think that they set their product/service prices, in reality, price
determined by markets, or I must say both consumers and companies
under some government regulative directions. However, in some market
56 S. U. KUCUK

conditions, company can have a dominant role in setting price while in

some other market conditions consumers play a more dominant role,
which was discussed broadly with price elasticity concept in this chapter.
Overall, every company needs to understand such market exchange
mechanisms and hence the coordinated role of such cost-based, demand-
based, and perceptual pricing tactics on reaching a final market price. The
figures, graphs, and visuals which are discussed in this chapter explain
the role of pricing on company operations by benefiting from the major
economic and psychology theories developed in this area.

Notes
1. Froeb et al. (2016).
2. Froeb et al. (2016).
3. Reinberg (2008).
4. Corstjens and Corstjens (1995).
5. http://www.moneytalksnews.com/tricks-of-the-trade-restaurants/.
6. http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/yourlifeyourmoney/7-pricing-tricks-
that-make-you-spend-more/ar-AAfmnoT?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=HPCDHP#
page=2.

References
Corstjens, J., & Corstjens, M. (1995). Store wars: The battle for mindspace and
shelfspace (p. 144). Wiley.
Farris, P., Bendle, N. T., Pfeifer, P. E., & Reibstein, D. (2006). Marketing metrics:
50+ metrics every executive should master. Wharton School Publishing.
Froeb, M. L., McCann, B. T., Shor, M., & Ward, M. R. (2016). Managerial
economics: A problem solving approach (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Reinberg, S. (2008, January 14). Study spotlights marketing’s impact on the
Brain: Maybe that bottle of wine isn’t worth as much as you thought.
HealthDay News. http://consumer.healthday.com/cognitive-and-neurologi
cal-health-information-26/brain-health-news-80/study-spotlights-marketing-
s-impact-on-the-brain-611659.html. Visited on July 29, 2016.
 CHAPTER 5

Place

Place or what is also called “Distribution” and/or “Product Availability”

is mostly a service function element to the other marketing mix elements
namely product, promotion, and price. Place helps these three Ps to
make their job better and reach their strategic marketing goals. Simply,
without being at a right place, at a right time, and at a right amount,
no product and marketing plan can reach success. Company might have
the best price and value in the market and a perfectly fitting message
supported with promotion techniques. But, if your product is not there
when consumer needed, you lose your consumer and revenue. Thus, the
place’s role in marketing activities is paramount even though it is the most
silent marketing mix elements and its effects can not directly be realized
and appreciated unless product is not there. The frequent out-of-stock
(OOS) situations of many products during the recent COVID pandemic
is a prime example of why distribution or place is important for both
companies and consumers.

Benefits of Distribution
In general, production can happen in one place (manufacturer’s factory)
while consumption happens in millions of various consumption places
(various retail stores, vending machines, etc.). Furthermore, production
happens at one time, but consumption happens in a long stretch of time

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 57

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_5
58 S. U. KUCUK

in millions of various times and places. These major differences between

production and consumption can be normalized and balanced by a third
function: “Place”.
Manufacturers’ expertise is to develop products/services and make the
product ready for consumption. They don’t generally have expertise on
carrying products to the consumption. In short, manufacturers’ expertise
in manufacturing can not necessarily translate into distribution expertise.
As indicated by Rosenbloom (1999) “the economies of that are necessary
for efficient production do not necessary make for efficient distribution”
(p. 36). This, economically, doesn’t make sense although some manufac-
turers seldom involve in distribution of their own products in traditional
marketing.
As seen in the first graph of Fig. 5.1, “average cost curve” (AC) indi-
cated that production of Q 1 amount of product incurs a cost of C 1 .
This is around optimum point on AC—where the company reaches the
economies of scale in production. However, such economies of scale
effects cannot be reached if the company attempts to distribute these
products by itself as indicated in the second graph in Fig. 5.1. Basically,
the company tries to distribute each order by itself directly to consumers.
Thus, in order to handle this new function, company needs to build a
new system (order processing facilities, delivering vehicles, warehousing
and inventory control systems, etc.) to handle huge amount of orders.
This in turn could be very costly and the company could not sell enough
to compensate for these costs (especially fixed costs). In other words, if
Q 1 amount of product is distributed, the costs of distribution will be C 2
at the point where even not close to optimum point of AC. The only way
to keep the costs in optimum level is to shift the distribution function to
other channel members.
In other words, assume that there are total 3 manufacturers and 3
consumers in a market. If each consumer visits each manufacturer one
by one to determine/find the best product, this, in turn, requires 3
times 3 equals nine visits and/or transactions to manufacturers. However,
if there is one outlet in the middle where can each consumer go and
compare all the products, this reduces the total visit numbers to 6 (3
visits from both manufacturers and consumers to the outlet). By creating
one major shopping stop between consumers and manufacturer (what
we call “distribution channel member”) where all the desired products
are stored and introduced to sales; consumers reduce shopping hassles
 5 PLACE 59

Price of product
produced

AC
C1

# of product
produced
Q1
Price of product
distributed

C2

AC

# of product
distributed
Q1

Fig. 5.1 Production, distribution, and average costs (Source Rosenbloom

[1999])

while manufacturers benefited from reduced transaction costs. Further-

more, manufacturers don’t need to deal with inventory and storage costs
by shifting the products to the distribution channel members. On the
other hand, shifting potential inventory costs to retailer means having
less control over how to represent and sell the product to the consumers.
Retail stores, in this context, are the places where consumers physically
first time face products in the real world. The success of such delegated
60 S. U. KUCUK

representation of products to consumers is paramount as the first impres-

sion of product might eventually influence consumers’ future purchase
habits.
In other words, although manufacturers can shift the inventory costs to
middlemen with the help of distribution channel, this also can change the
structure and the length of distribution channel and product handling
processes. Manufacturers desperately need help to share their inventory
costs of holding products for the products with high inventory costs
(e.g., automobiles). Manufacturer can’t store all the manufactured cars;
hence they shift the products to car dealers which carry the retailing func-
tion for manufacturers. Similarly, for grocery items, manufacturers can’t
store products for a long time, thus they need to shift their product as
soon as possible to markets for consumption before the grocery items
get worse. If manufacturer wants to keep such items in their inventory,
that would be very costly as such items need cold rooms and constant
caring. Thus, the need for retailers is high when the product is difficult to
restore and fragile. This is called “retailer channel”. On the other hand,
low-cost items (such as candy, chewing gum, canned products, etc.) are
easy to store and easy to handle, thus it is possible to see another channel
member in addition to retailers: “wholesalers”. This is also called “whole-
saler channel”. Furthermore, if there are many small producers in the
markets and if it is very difficult to reach these producers and collect
products from such producers/manufacturers as they are spread in a wide
range of geographic locations, then agents or brokers involve the collec-
tion of these products to carry wholesalers/retailers. This happens in
meat markets and grocery market items as somebody needs to go into
the market (producers) and talk with each producer/farmer and pick
the best products for wholesaler/retailer. In fact, insurance industry is
another good example of these kinds of distribution channels as insurance
agents try to reach these fragmented and small markets. This eventually
adds another middleman in distribution channel and extends the distribu-
tion channel length: “Agents”. This can also be conceptualized as “agent
channel”.
However, the inclusion of each new member in distribution channel
system makes the coordination among channel members difficult and
increases the price of final product as each member reflects their costs to
the final price. Thus, the solution is either establishing “vertical integra-
tion” with all the channel members or “disintermediation” by eliminating
 5 PLACE 61

as many middlemen as possible and replacing them with advance informa-

tion systems in order to be able to sell the products to consumers directly.
Nowadays, consumer can easily go manufacturer’s website and order their
products and the product is delivered directly to consumers with ordinary
mailing systems. In other words, in today’s digital markets, distribution
systems are replaced with delivery and mailing systems.

Distribution Elasticity
Distribution elasticity is a measure showing how much distribution or
product availability can eventually affect company’s sales. It also indicates
the distribution intensity in the markets where the company is operating.
Distribution is a very important part of marketing mix element planning
if the product is convenience or impulse product. These kinds of prod-
ucts require “intensive distribution” while shopping goods require more
“selective distribution”. Finally, specialty and luxury products are not
heavily, in fact not at all, depended on distribution as part of marketing
mix planning. Thus, consumers go search and find such specialty products
where they are available as conceptualized with “exclusive distribution”.
In other words, distribution elasticity is a more concrete and quantitative
representation of distribution intensity and it simply indicates the change
in distribution impact on sales other effects excluded. The concept utilizes
the similar calculation approach whit price elasticity as discussed in the
pricing chapter earlier.
If distribution elasticity (De) is greater than one, it means the product’s
success mostly depends on product availability. This is generally the
case for frequently purchased products as indicated in Fig. 5.2. Simi-
larly, empirical research indicated that distribution and product availability
might also lead market share for these kinds of items when such products
are available at every outlet in the market (Farris et al., 1989). This rela-
tionship reveals a convex shape as pictured in Fig. 5.3 (Farris et al., 1989;
Reibstein & Farris, 1995) for the items where especially De > 1 as follows.
In general, small outlets carry few products than big stores. Once
the product is available in the market everywhere, searching the product
won’t be an option. Smaller stores generate fewer shares, and more outlets
start carrying the product market share grows at increasing pace. Since
the market share must equal 100% then the entire outlet shares equal
100%. In other words, the product’s visibility and possibility of being
purchased can eventually reach the highest level (100%) as well as its
62 S. U. KUCUK

Sales/Demand
Frequently Purchased
Products (candy, milk, etc.)

Shopping Goods (jeans,

clothes, apparel, etc.)

Specialty/Luxury Products
(Rolex watch, etc.)

Distribution

Fig. 5.2 Distribution elasticity (Source West [1989])

Market Share

%100

Distribution
%100 (Product Availability)

Fig. 5.3 Distribution and market share (Source Farris et al. [1989] and
Reibstein and Farris [1995])

market share. Since there are less monetary risks involved in buying these
kinds of frequently purchase products, the only differentiating factor is the
availability of product in the retail store or in market, thus their success
highly depended on distribution.
 5 PLACE 63

On the other hand, if De is less than one or a very small number

approximating to zero, it means that distribution has no or very limited
impact on products sales as indicated with specialty and shopping goods
lines in Fig. 5.2. For these kinds of items, company might be able
to tolerate the unavailability of the product to a certain extent, but
unavailability of an impulsive items means loss of sales and market share.

Inventory Control
Companies need to know how much product to stock before it’s
demanded so that they can satisfy the consumer needs. However, there
is a delicate line between overstocking the product and hence facing
increasing inventory costs, and not stocking enough and hence dealing
with loss sales to competitors and other alternatives. Thus, every company
eventually needs successful management of inventory control systems to
predict the optimum amount of products to order and store. In this
context, a good inventory control system should be built upon two
major issues in mind: (1) a sound demand forecasting system, and (2)
a successful cost inventory management system.
In the situations where consumer demand rate and ordering and
holding costs are constant, there is less need for demand forecasting. Simi-
larly, if demand lead time (how often to order the product to meet the
demand) is almost fixed or constant, then the company can have achieved
the lowest costs possible by calculating “Economic Order Quantity”
(EOQ). EOQ can be formulated as follows:
√
Q = 2D K / h,

where D is “(annual) Demand Quantity”,

K is “Fixed Costs of Ordering, Shipping and Handling per order”,
h is “storage costs per unit”.

EOQ indicates the order quantity where total logistic costs (inventory
carrying costs + ordering costs or aka transportation costs) were mini-
mized. In other words, the company should always try to reach lowest
total costs by keeping inventory carrying costs and ordering costs in
manageable levels as also pictured in Fig. 5.4.
64 S. U. KUCUK

Cost

Total Costs

Inventory Costs

Lowest total
relevant costs
Transportation Costs

Order Size

Fig. 5.4 Economic Order Quantity (EOQ)

However, consumer demand is not always perfectly fixed or constant.

Consumer demand is very difficult to predict and many forecasting
models fall short of calculating right amount of demand most of the
time. Thus, companies always try to order more than they need to (aka
precautionary or safety stocks) in order to reduce the potential sales loss
and consumer dissatisfaction caused by the out-of-stock situation. The
amount of such precautionary stocks can be another problem and cost
source if the demand doesn’t fluctuate more than expected.
If it is expected to see an increase in demand, every middleman
eventually places high orders with some level of safety stocks. This will
eventually create domino effects in distribution channels and the amount
of product in distribution channel reaches levels more than needed. Once
the middleman dealt with high inventory costs, s/he will make more
conservative predictions and try to reduce inventory levels. In general, if a
middleman predicts that the demand will be low in markets, he will even-
tually drop the order amount and that will reduce the product amount
in the distribution channel. The unpredictability of demand eventually
creates abnormality in stocking decisions and unexpected highs and lows
in order amounts. Thus, many distribution channel members face higher
inventory costs than necessary. This phenomenon is called “bullwhip
effects” as also pictured in Fig. 5.5.
 5 PLACE 65

Order Quantity Order Quantity

Stock Stock

Consumer Retailer

Time Time

Order Quantity Order Quantity

Stock Stock

Wholesaler Manufacturer

Time Time

Straight Line: Order Quantity

Dotted Line: Stock

Fig. 5.5 Bullwhip effects (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bul

whip_efect.jpg. I couldn’t find the original article but Wikipedia reference)

As it can be seen from Fig. 5.5, there are big differences between order
quantity and actual stocking levels for each middleman. A little unex-
pected change in consumer demand (as pictured in the first graph of
Fig. 5.5) can lead a big wave of unpredictability in stocking decisions till
manufacturer. This creates excessive amount of safety stocking all around
to distribution channel to be able to tame the wild demand movements.
Needless to say, this will eventually increase the inventory costs for every
middleman in the distribution channel. Synchronizing the demand with
66 S. U. KUCUK

right amount of orders is not the case all the time, and thus companies
end up to deal with out-of-stock costs.

Out-of-Stock (OOS) Situation

As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, consumers can’t evaluate
distribution systems effectiveness unless the product is unavailable in
retailer’s shelves thus it is out-of-stock (OOS). Consumer responses to
an OOS item can vary as discussed broadly in the OOS literature.
In an OOS situation, consumers either postpone their purchase of
OOS item or switch the OOS item with the available product in the
same store or leave the store to search the OOS item in another store.
If a consumer prefers to switch the OOS item with an available one at
the same store, that’s eventually retailers’ gain and perhaps indicates the
power of consumer store loyalty (Kucuk, 2004, 2008). In fact, some store
loyal consumers can’t even realize the OOS situation and they pick the
available alternatives for their convenience. However, this might not be
the case for brand loyal consumers. If a consumer prefers to leave the
store and go to search for the OOS item in another store, that is eventu-
ally manufacturer’s gain and might be used as an indicator of the strength
of the consumer brand loyalty toward the OOS item (Kucuk, 2004,
2008). In some cases, brand loyal consumers might prefer to postpone
purchasing the OOS item until it is available or alternatively they pick
the different size of the same OOS item (aka “size-switching”). These
types of consumer reactions to OOS items are pictured with a detailed
algorithm in Fig. 5.6.
Although the degree of brand and store loyalty might play active roles
on influencing consumers’ decisions in the OOS situation, some situ-
ational factors are under the control of retailers. Retailers can try to
influence consumer’s decisions by increasing the effectiveness of in-store
merchandising activities to available alternatives in the store especially
for the items that are constantly out-of-stock. Overall, consumer needs
to make a decision, whether s/he postpone their purchase decision or
switch the store to search the brand that s/he feels loyal. Or, alter-
natively, buy the available alternatives under the influence of retailer’s
in-store merchandising activities (such as in-store advertisements, price
promotions, big shelfspace, etc.). In this context, OOS situation is a big
test of consumer’s brand loyalty and store loyalty for especially frequently
purchased and convenience items (Kucuk, 2004).
 5 PLACE 67

TOMA

Consumer

Store

Postpone (t+1, 2, 3 ...) Brand

+ - Size
AVAILABILITY

Not Buy
- - Switching PBA

Fig. 5.6 Algorithm for consumer behaviors in OOS situation (Note Dotted
lines indicate consumers’ behavioral responses to the OOS item as also discussed
in OOS literature. Source Kucuk [2011])

On the other hand, brand and store loyalty might not be that strong
and valid for impulsive and some specific frequently purchased items. If
the market is of a fixed size (thus is not changing or is dynamic) and brand
loyalty is very small or nonexistent; product availability (or hence distri-
bution) and in-store merchandising might play active roles in changing
consumers’ preferences at the point of purchase. Furthermore, not every
consumer feels loyal to a specific brand and store, and they just make
daily shopping decisions based on “Top-Of-Mind-Awareness” (TOMA)
toward brands for especially frequently purchased items. TOMA defines
basic level consumer brand awareness which indicates the first choice
or the first known brand name in consumer’s mind from the category
consumer is willing to shop. Whether consumer previously purchased
the brand or not, every consumer might be able to count a couple of
brand names from the category s/he wants to shop. TOMA is gener-
ally created by media advertisements and word-of-mouth. Thus, although
some consumers enter retail stores with some level of TOMA regarding
68 S. U. KUCUK

set of brands, not every TOMA created in consumer minds can necessarily
lead to a purchase decision.
In this context, retailers’ goal is to either carry the products that
have high TOMA or break the strength of TOMA in-store and direct
consumers to available products in the store. In the case of constant
unavailability of a product with high TOMA, retailers goal is, then,
to lessen the strength of TOMA with its own awareness tool which is
recently conceptualized as Push-Based-Brand-Awareness (PBA). PBA, in
this context, was defined as “available brand’s ability to create consumer
awareness with the support of retailer’s in-store merchandising efforts in
the situation of the consistent unavailability (OOS) of the searched item at
the same retail store/setting over time” (Kucuk, 2011). Thus, TOMA is
mostly created with many promotion tools before consumers enter the
retail store while PBA solely relies on retailers’ in-store merchandising
effectiveness. PBA can also be formularized with the combination of the
consumer awareness toward consistently available items (sheer awareness
or availability awareness-AA) and the amount of in-store merchandising
support [PBA = AA * In-store Merchandising]. Whereas AA is used as
an indicator of the ability of distribution and/or product availability to
create consumer brand awareness for the items experiencing consistent
OOS (Kucuk, 2008). Therefore, two important factors can determine the
PBA’s success: (1) the level of in-store merchandising support available
brand receives, (2) duration of OOS of the searched item which directly
affects AA. These functional relationships are also pictured in Fig. 5.7.
If retailers successfully manage and control the duration of OOS
(DurOOS) and in-store merchandising efforts (IsM), the brand awareness
level created by PBA in the retail store might be pulled to higher TOMA
levels down. Figure 5.7 illustrates how AA and PBA might shape, a convex
curve slopes upward to the right as discussed in previous empirical studies
in this section. If a brand is frequently in an OOS situation, the amount of
TOMA (TOMAa ) created with previous exposures and AAa might even-
tually go down as consumers are exposed to availability of other brands
in the same store (AAb ). In this situation, AAb might reach higher levels
over time when Brand-b is widely available in the market, and the dura-
tion of OOS extends (also indicated with a thick gray arrow pointing
an action toward the right). If Brand-b also receives an effective in-store
merchandising effort from a retailer (which is indicated with a thick gray
arrow pointing an action toward the left), Brand-b reaches higher aware-
ness levels earlier than as expected (PBAb ). This is indicated with dotted
 5 PLACE 69

Brand Awareness in OOS

PBAb IsM AAb

TOMAa

Brand Awareness
Break-Even point

AAa
DurOOS

Time
PBAa

Fig. 5.7 Push-based brand awareness (Source Kucuk [2011])

lines in Fig. 5.7. The point where AAa and AAb as well as PBAa and PBAb
intersect is where brand awareness levels reach equilibrium, conceptual-
ized as a “Brand Awareness Break-Even” point (also indicated with an
arrow in Fig. 5.7). In this break-even awareness point, consumer brand
awareness might eventually be further triggered by active implicit memory
created during previous and frequent OOS occasions.
If a brand passes the break-even brand awareness level, consumer’s
AA and PBA toward the available brands increase at higher paces. At
some point, the consumer does not search for a previously preferred item
anymore, and TOMA of the available brand takes over and eventually
starts entering the consumer’s awareness and consideration set. Thus,
the consumer’s choice finally might be compromised in the store. With
that, AA and PBA transform to TOMA, completing consumer prefer-
ence modification in the retail store. This example indicates how powerful
distribution can get to develop brand awareness and change consumer
preferences especially frequently purchased or impulsive products.

Conclusion
Place is the main marketing mix elements responsible for allocations of
products and services within the markets. Travel of product from produc-
tion through marketing channels to consumption or to markets can be
70 S. U. KUCUK

complex and confusing. And such complexity reaches the next levels in
global markets as various cultural and legal rise. In this context, compa-
nies who are closer to markets and have better demand forecasting options
would generally be able to eliminate such complexity and provide a less
costly flow of products/services to the markets.
Today’s manufacturers are trying to optimize their way to markets
by utilizing various forms of distribution channels and hence devel-
oping multichannel marketing systems to be able to make their prod-
ucts/services available in the right consumption places at the right
time with the right amount. While this, in turn, increases manufac-
turer’s market coverage, it also helps them to reduce hidden OOS
costs and other distribution problems. Further, well-organized and well-
coordinated multichannel distribution systems could also strengthen PBA
and contribute to companies’ brand awareness building efforts. Compa-
nies should not forget the fact that not only product and services travels
through the distribution channels but also information and money among
such channel intermediaries. Thus, place plays a paramount role in busi-
ness operations behind the scenes, and consumers can’t realize and
understand until the product is OOS. The success measure of place, in
this context, could be determined by the level of OOS occasions in a
market. The costs of distribution of the products/services to markets are
also impact its final price. Thus, direct and indirect, or hidden, economic
impact of the “place” in an economy could not be ignored from a macro-
level perspective as distribution systems work like the blood vessels of any
economic system. If one of these distribution vessels is blocked, this even-
tually impacts everybody who is part of such social and economic system,
not only manufacturers.
Overall, without establishing well-functioning distribution systems that
can easily adopt itself into changing market needs, no marketing mix
elements can reach success as explained in this chapter. In this respect,
the figures, graphs, and visuals are discussed in this chapter are intended
to explain the importance and role of place on company operations by
borrowing from some economic and psychology theories developed in
this field. Such visuals would hopefully provide a clear understanding of
the basic components of such complex but somewhat ignored marketing
mix element.
 5 PLACE 71

References
Farris, P., Olver, J., & DeKluyver, C. (1989). The relationship between distribu-
tion and market share. Marketing Science, 8(2), 107–128.
Kucuk, S. U. (2004). Reducing the out-of-stock costs in a developing retailing
sector. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 16(3), 75–104.
Kucuk, S. U. (2008). Can distribution explain double jeopardy patterns?
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 36(5), 409–425.
Kucuk, S. U. (2011). Push-based brand awareness: The role of product
availability and in-store merchandising. International Review of Retail, Distri-
bution & Consumer Research, 21(3), 201–213.
Reibstein, J. D., & Farris, P. W. (1995). Market share and distribution: A gener-
alization, a speculation, and some implications. Marketing Science, 14(3),
G190-202.
Rosenbloom, B. (1999). Marketing channels: A management view (6th ed.). The
Dryden Press.
West, A. (1989). Managing distribution and change: The total distribution
concept. Wiley.
 CHAPTER 6

Promotion

How do companies talk with their consumers? The answer to this ques-
tion is mostly hidden behind “promotion” as another marketing mix
element. Companies communicate the value created by products/services
to consumers through various promotion tools. There are two major goals
behind promotion practices; (1)- Offering information to consumers
about products features and attributes; and (2)- Convincing or persuading
consumers to buy the product by changing their beliefs about the
products by building right image and identity.
In every communications process, there are always three major compo-
nents:

1. Audience—Who is your audience? And what do they like? What do

they want to hear?
2. Message—What are the appealing signs, symbols, and semiotics you
need to use—what is the content or feature of your message? What
do you want to tell your audience?
3. Channel—What is the best way to reach your audience, TV,
Internet, or print? Which toll do they use when they need infor-
mation? Or, when and how do consumers use various message
channels?

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 73

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_6
74 S. U. KUCUK

Every promotion communication uses four major marketing tech-

niques in order to reach these goals: Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public
Relations, and Personal Selling. These four promotion tools are also called
“Promotion Mix” elements. Each of these promotion tools has different
function and capacity to communicate with consumers.
“Advertising” (i.e., TV and radio ads) is a perfect tool to reach to
crowds and masses as the cost per contact is very low compared to other
promotion mix elements. On the other hand, the total costs of advertising
can be quite high compared to other promotion tools. However, “Per-
sonal Selling” (i.e., business-to-business selling or door-to-door selling)
requires personal and one-to-one selling communication with buyers and
generally used in industrial markets or B2B markets. Personal selling
focuses on influencing and convincing the other party to buy the prod-
ucts. Because the marketing communication happens in personal level,
selling efforts generally focus on building trustworthy relationship with
the buyer. Thus, it generally takes long time and can be very costly
as it is difficult to convince each buyer one at a time. But this tech-
nique might be the most powerful technique among others in order
to inform and persuade the potential buyer as it focuses on building
long-lasting relationship building efforts. On the other hand, “Sales
Promotion” (i.e., coupons, premiums, and temporary price reductions)
doesn’t have long-term effects like personal selling. Sales Promotion
has more effects on accelerating sales by stimulating impulsive purchase
decisions. Although it is a low cost, it does not aim at building long-
term relationships with consumers. Yet, sales promotion can be very
effective and can be seen as very competitive marketing synergy when
especially is used with other promotion mix elements. Finally, “Public
Relations”, which is building publicity regarding the products/services
delivered in the markets, aims at major media sources and critics. It
is the only non-paid communication tool that focuses on convincing
product experts and opinion leaders for their positive reviews to build
positive public image. In other words, it can be seen as a strong trust
building tool when there is uncertainty surrounding the company and its
products.
Thus, such promotion tools will be discussed one by one with their
visual representations in the following sections.
 6 PROMOTION 75

Advertising
Advertising’s success highly depends on creating and communicating the
right message with the right consumers repeated times so consumers’
learning about the product and services can be enhanced. Thus, the
ability of advertising message to connect with consumers will determine
its success. The first issue for marketers to determine is who to reach or
who’s your target audience of your message. This is defined as “reach” in
advertising literature. It is simply number, or percentage of individuals in
a defined population who receive at least on exposure 1 or a message.
However, reach indicates one time only contact with consumers. And
most of the time, only one exposure could be forgotten in a short time,
and hence advertisement effects would be diminished after initial exposure
if the messages can’t be sent to audience over again. Although reach is
important, it should be followed with repeated exposures for a strong
impact on consumers.
Thus, secondly, we, consumers, can easily forget much information
introduced to us, the message should be repeated for better return
on every advertisement dollar spent. In other words, the advertisement
message should be repeated for longer time periods so that consumers’
learning of messages can be enhanced. In other words, how many
times or how often should we send this ad message to consumers so
that we can have a higher remembrance or at least significant amount
of TOMA (Top-of-mind-awareness). Thus, another type of advertise-
ment measure is developed, called frequency, to determine advertisement
success. Frequency, in this context, indicates frequency of advertisement
message, as also simply defined as number of times that each individual sees
the advertisement.2 Both reach and frequency measures tell us how much
“impressions”, which is (reach) x (frequency), an ad message can make in
consumers’ minds or how much mental space can be built in consumers’
minds regarding products/services with an advertisement.

Advertising Effectiveness and Wear-Out

Early research revealed that we, human beings, forget 75% of new infor-
mation we learnt after a week (aka “Ebbinghaus Curve” or “Forgetting
Curve”). Thus, if the memory is not refreshed or repeated, the new
information introduced will eventually leave the consumers’ memory
permanently after six months to one year as also indicated with bold-
black line in Fig. 6.1. Therefore, the longer the advertising message stays
76 S. U. KUCUK

in consumers’ memory, the higher impact on consumers’ purchase deci-

sions might be expected. If the consumer can’t remember the information
provided in advertising message at the point of purchase, which, in turn,
would be loss of sales opportunity.
From marketing point of view, the money invested in advertising
efforts to inform and influence to consumers about products would be
wasted, if the advertising message is not repeated enough. At the end
of the day, it is highly possible that only limited amount of informa-
tion might be retrieved and remembered with limited capacity since we
are bombarded with millions of advertising messages and new informa-
tion every day. Thus, advertising message should be repeated enough (as
also indicated dotted red line in Fig. 6.1) so that it could become part
of consumers’ long-term memory. This, in turn, potentially plays active
role in many consumers’ purchase decisions about the products/services.
In short, increasing advertising repetition of intriguing and interesting
advertisement messages eventually increases the possibility of consumers’
making purchase decisions in the long run. In other words, repetition and
advertising message remembrance are at the heart of advertising research
as repetition is one of the most incremental learning and reinforcement
tools.

Proposed Advertising
% of Memory Retrieved

100% New Information Introduced Repetition/Enhancement

80%

60% 1 Day After Without Reinforcement

40%
1 Week After Without Reinforcement
20%

0
1 Day 1 Week 1 Year
Time

Fig. 6.1 Forgetting curve and advertising repetition (Source Ebbinghaus

[1913] or Colin [1995])
 6 PROMOTION 77

Overall, though, the question would be which advertisement strategy

should company to follow: focusing on only reach or frequency or both?
Put simply, should company spend its next dollar on reaching the same
customer over again or to spend reaching new segments and consumers?
Perhaps majority of marketing scholars and practitioners would prob-
ably prefer to use reach and frequency together, there is a need for
comparative discussions to better understand how advertisement works.
In this context, if a company doesn’t want to reach no more than one
specific group of consumers, the advertisement impact could be dropped
to the level before advertisement campaign started as there is no memory
building effort included. Thus, reach could only be beneficial for a short-
term return. Company could pick different segments each time and
collect revenue from each segment once at a time by only focusing on
reach. Thus, diminishing returns law can be observed if a company only
uses reach and even visits each single segment once at a time so that it
can increase its total revenue. In other words, if a company wants short-
term effects without memory, reach is the way to go. This could be right
strategy for “frequently purchased products” since the consumption of
these items is impulsive and unplanned in nature, and impact is mostly
depended on distribution and product availability. On the other hand,
some products, especially specialty products, require learning of product
features (e.g., consumer electronics) needs to be grown with frequency.
Frequency, in contrast, focuses on supporting consumer learning and
recall capacity of advertisement. Hence, it could be the best tool for
shopping and specialty products.
Although some scholars propose companies should buy as much
frequency as possible, not every company can advertise its message
forever. The costs of advertisement can be high and thus the company
should optimize how many times an advertising message to be repeated
to hominy people/consumers. Furthermore, if the advertisement message
repeated too often, the message can wear out after a point. This is called
advertisement “wear-out effects” of advertising, and it indicates dimin-
ishing returns of advertisement. At that wear-off point and beyond, adver-
tisement effectiveness can be minimized or stay flat since the repeated ads
don’t influence the receiver anymore. It should also be indicated that such
wear-out effect is more related to frequency rather than reach as there are
almost no diminishing returns to reach.3
Early advertising research tested whether it is good idea for company
to burst its entire advertising effort in one time only initial specific period,
78 S. U. KUCUK

which is called “massing”, or sending advertising message to respon-

dent every other week or separated time periods, called “pulsing”. When
consumers’ memory tested with unaided questions regarding the adver-
tising, the results revealed that mass advertising reaches high recall levels
quickly but also dies quickly in the following weeks as also indicated with
red line in Fig. 6.2.
Although pulsing could have little recall effects in the short run, it
could keep increasing and staying around for a long time, perhaps years,
in the market. Thus, if marketer needs more immediate effects (perhaps
in an aggressive competition) massing advertising can be right strategy to
do while pulsing can be right option if company is searching for a steady
stay brand awareness and/or remembrance or at least create some level
of mental availability so that they can get a return of their advertising
buck in the long run. In this context, the question is after how long an
advertisement message should be stopped so that advertising wear-out
effects can take away all the company’s advertisement effort? The early
studies have tested some different pulsing strategies (of TV ads) as also
pictured in Fig. 6.3.
As also indicated in Fig. 6.3., depending on exposure amount either
low (1–3 ads/moth) or medium (4–6 ads/month) or heavy (7–12
ads/month), advertisement wear-out effects can easily be observed in
consumers’ brand awareness levels. Wear-out effects are seen earlier

Massing
% of Unaided Recall

60
Pulsing
50
40
30
20
10
0 8 16 24 32 40 48
Weeks

Fig. 6.2 Advertising repetition and mode on recall (Source Zielske [1959])
 6 PROMOTION 79

Fig. 6.3 Wear out effects of advertising in different pulsing scenarios (Source
Greenberg and Suttoni [1973]; Taken from Vakratsas and Prasad [2007])

in heavy ad exposure levels (around 7 weeks) than medium (around

10 weeks) and low ad exposure (around 12–13 weeks) levels, respec-
tively. Further, the researchers didn’t see any wear-out effects in the group
that were not exposed to advertisement. In other words, the decline in
consumers’ brand awareness levels over time was inevitable if ad exposure
reaches higher levels and become massed.4 Although wear-out effects can
be seen depending on the exposure levels as explained above, the most
recent research also revealed that consumers who saw the advertisement
10 times are more likely to make purchase decision.5 Even some industry
experts pull such wear-out effects to 15 to 20 weeks. Such deviation could
be the result of differences between the product types.
In other words, it could be naïve to expect the same repetition results
in every kind of products as indicated in previous discussions. Every
product requires different level of learning. A technologically advanced
product requires more learning and more in-depth research about the
product. But, if the product is an ordinary impulsive or a frequently
purchased product, the risks are perceived and learning about the product
can be very limited. Thus, the effectiveness of the advertising repeti-
tion eventually plays different roles in different product categories as also
pictured in Fig. 6.4.
80 S. U. KUCUK

Advertising cumulative effectiveness (%)

Learning-S Curve

Linear

Threshold Value

Repetition

Fig. 6.4 Advertisement effectiveness (Source Farris et al. [2007])

Linear advertising effectiveness model is generally true for frequently

purchased products as there is less risk perceived buying such products.
Thus, consumers can easily get influenced by such advertising, and switch
to advertised items. On the other hand, some products such as shopping
goods require some learning and once consumers learned the product
features that eventually shows itself with an S-shape graph. In each adver-
tisement, consumers learn more about the product and develop positive
attitudes which in turn stimulate consumers to purchase. The reason
behind this learning curve is the more consumers are informed about
the products, the less risk can be perceived in purchasing such products as
majority start using it, thus advertising effectiveness reveals learning-curve
type of shapes. Finally, consumers need more information and perceive
high risks when they are shopping of specialty or luxury products. Once
all the required information is collected, all the repeated advertisings and
exposure finally paid off, and consumers might consider going to buy the
product as indicated with threshold value graph in Fig. 6.4.

Advertising Believability
On the other hand, the research also showed that increased repetition
of advertising messages can further influence consumers’ beliefs about
 6 PROMOTION 81

High
Believability
Low

Low Repetition High

Fig. 6.5 Advertising truth effect (Source Wirthwein [2008])

the product and/or company. Some studies revealed that consumers have
tendency to believe the repeated messages and accept as it is true whether
the claim is true or not (aka “Truth Effect”)6 as also pictured in Fig. 6.5.
On the other hand, if consumers are highly involved in advertising
messages and knowledgeable about the company’s offerings, they can
easily question the believability of advertising and hence they might get
more skeptical about what the message claims.7 In this context, it would
be fair to say that every consumer has different interests and beliefs
regarding the company’s offerings, thus aforementioned wear-out effects
could not be generalized to everyone. For example, if a consumer finds
the story used in the advertisement interesting, that information can easily
be retained in consumers’ memory. However, if the story used in the
advertisement contradicts with consumer’s beliefs (which happens most
of the time in political ads), a consumer might find the message untrue,
unbelievable, and/or hype. If the ad message is fully contradicting the
audience’s views and beliefs system and carry some shocking and untrue
claims, even one-time advertising exposure could be too much for specific
audience. In this context, contradictory information that was presented in
the ads only creates audiences’ awareness and perhaps limited amount of
interest.8
In general, consumers can find the information more interesting if it
fits consumers’ interest and if the advertisement is repeated, consumers’
involvement into advertisement message can eventually incrementally
increase. Although contradicting information with consumer believes
82 S. U. KUCUK

may enhance consumer’s involvement to the message as also pictured

in Fig. 6.5, there is a fine line between information contradiction and
consumer beliefs as extreme contradictions can be perceived as absurd and
non-sense, thus the advertisement can totally be rejected by consumers.
This, in turn, is another source of wasted advertisement money. But, if
such balance can be managed appropriately and leaves a sweat and sour
taste in consumers’ mouths, it can also be perceived as fascinating and
in fact true (Tellis, 1998). Advertising message should focus on creating
impression as from okay-acceptable or understandable to interesting to
fascinating (Tellis, 1998). This is the way how marketers can generate
awareness among consumers who has various degrees of beliefs about the
issues used in the advertisement.
In this context, advertisement can be used as an important tool to
not only creating consumer awareness but also consumer interest. As a
rule of thumb, advertising message should be clear and making strong
claims without causing any confusion in message receivers’ perceptions
with optimum amount of repetition. Determination of the right amount
of advertising repetition is important in order to reach highest efficiency.
In other words, marketer’s goal is to eliminate duplicated reach and expo-
sure (reaching targeted interested consumers more than they needed to
or wanted to) and wrong audience (consumers with no potential interest
with company and product) in order to eliminate waste of advertise-
ment money. As a result, advertisement content and message clarity are
as important as advertisement repetition and reach in building consumer
awareness and interest as well as changing attitudes and behaviors of
consumers regarding products and services.
Considering all the pros and cons of advertising, advertising could be
seen as costly and difficult to manage for some companies, and hence
they might prefer to stop advertising spending overall. In fact, some
managers even see advertising as waste as also famously pointed out by
John Wanamaker: “Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I
don’t know which half ”. However, stopping advertising means gradual
loss of all the memory created in consumer minds regarding your product
and brand. Recent research revealed that when brands stop advertising
the sales numbers fall 16% in the first year and 25% in the following year,
and finally drop 36% in the third year.9 Interestingly, not all brands react
on the same way. For example, bigger brands (brands that have high
penetration and usage rations who enjoy higher consumer mental and
physical store product availability) sales drops are less than smaller and
 6 PROMOTION 83

Sales

Big Brands

Medium Brands

Small Brands

Years Without Advertising

Fig. 6.6 Brand sales without advertising (Source Hartnett et al. [2021])

medium size brands (which have less penetration and usage rates than
bigger brands) as also featured in Fig. 6.6.
As pictured in Fig. 6.6, all size brands has a clear drop in their sales
numbers when they stop advertising while small brands suffer greatly
than bigger brands. However, big brands’ decline could be short-term.
Without advertising communications, consumers’ memory could only
be refreshed through in-store merchandising and displays within retail
stores. The longer the company goes without advertisement that aimed at
memory refreshment, the easier for mental availability of the brand could
be eroded. In general, big brands have always higher physical availability
(and hence higher availability awareness) and mental share in consumers’
minds as they have already established some sort of habitual purchasing
behaviors, thus bigger brands can survive better than small and medium
size brands without advertising.10

Sales Promotion
Sales promotion’s main goal is to create short-term behavioral changes
in both consumers and -term distribution channel members. The most
used sales promotion tools are temporary price reduction, couponing, or
gift giving activities aimed at adding more value to the product at the
purchase point. The goal is to change the consumers’ behaviors and deci-
sions at the point of purchase. Although some of the sales promotions
aim at distribution channel members such as retailers and wholesalers
(which also known as “trade promotions”), the ultimate goal is to pass
84 S. U. KUCUK

trade promotion on the ultimate consumers. In other words, advertising’s

goal is to create a demand before consumers get into the store while
sales promotions aim at changing consumer preferences at the point of
purchase in the store.
Because sales promotion uses many price-related tools, it is easy to
modify the sales promotion strategies in a short time. Advertising can’t
affect sales numbers immediately the way sales promotions do but focus
on building long-term relationships with consumers to generate positive
attitude and loyalty. On the other hand, sales promotion effects can easily
be seen in sales numbers as many sales promotion tactics especially tempo-
rary price reductions can easily create brand switchers. However, such
sales increases can’t extent to long-term effects, and sales numbers drop
sharply immediately at the end of the promotion period. This, in turn,
creates sales spikes in sales numbers rather than slowly increasing sales
trends. Thus, the results of sales promotion can immediately be seen (e.g.,
days or even hours) as opposed to advertising (e.g., months and years or
no response at all sometimes). In other words, sales promotions can be
used as more like a tactical tool to create short-term brand switching
behaviors rather than a long-term strategic tool like advertisement.
When trade deals initiated by manufacturers are passed onto retailers
and hence consumption spaces, high sales volumes, and initially sharp sale
spikes in sales numbers are expected as most of the consumers try to get
max for each of buck. However, sales numbers go down at the end of
the promotion period, but there could be some small aftershock sales
increases as the initial excitement created with sales promotion can be
extended a little while as pictured in Fig. 6.7. This over-consumption or
sales spike, eventually, leads to inventory shortage and stock-out problems
as also indicated with sharp drop in sale which is also titled as “inven-
tory effects” in Fig. 6.7. The stock-out situation is natural result of sales
promotions. Companies, especially retailers, should carefully plan post-
sales promotion inventory problems as head as stock-out situations can
generate unhappy consumers. Sales numbers won’t come back to base-
line sales levels until the retailer refill the empty shelfspaces at the end of
the sales promotion period.
General sales promotion lines don’t show any smooth lines but more
jagged lines with sharp peaks and drops as a result of sales promotions.
Various sales promotion techniques work differently in sales volumes.
While many sales promotion effects can be seen immediately (e.g.,
coupons and attractive display usage) on sales numbers, the most dramatic
 6 PROMOTION 85

Sales ($)
Promotion
Trade Ends
Deal
Begins

Carryover Effect

Inventory Effect

Time (monthly, quarterly)

Fig. 6.7 General sales promotion curve (Source Blattberg et al. [1987])

effects can be seen with temporally price reductions. When these sales
promotion elements used together the sales spikes and drops get sharper
and a synergy effect can potentially be observed on sales numbers.
Research revealed that sales numbers can reach higher levels if display
(e.g., eye level shelfspaces or end-aisle displays with eye catching in-
store advertisements) and price-cut used together and/or some form of
featuring price-cut during sales promotions in the store (Blattberg &
Neslin, 1989).
Interestingly, sales numbers seldom go down beyond the base-line
sale levels (regular sales numbers when everything is being equal) as
indicated with horizontal dashed line in Fig. 6.7 once the sales promo-
tion is ended. For especially frequently purchased products consumption,
sales numbers bounce back and stay at approximate levels where it was
before the promotion started. This lack of promotion dip right after the
sales promotion (aka “lack of post-promotion dip”) is also important
phenomenon that reveals light to understand how sales promotions actu-
ally work for frequently purchased products. General look at the lack of
post-promotion dip figures are presented in Fig. 6.8.
The general structure is discussed with a simple example in Fig. 6.8a by
Perreault et al. (2012) as follows: children might convince their parents to
eat Big Macs at McDonalds while there is a promotion there, and once the
promotion is over things get back to normal where it was. The fact that
86 S. U. KUCUK

Sales

(a) Sales temporarily

increases and then returns to
the regular level

Time

Period of
Promotion
Sales

(b) Sales increases and then

remains at higher levels

Time

Period of
Promotion

Fig. 6.8 Sales promotion effectiveness in various scenarios (a) Sales temporarily
increases and then returns to the regular level (b) Sales increases and then remains
at higher levels (Source Perreault et al. [2012])

McDonalds is a service company and works with just-in-time production

models, the lack of sales dip after promotion can be seen as a normal result
(aka “lack of post-promotion dip). Recently such lack of post-promotion
dip effects is observed in physical product categories and explained by
consumers stocking decisions. However, there are times consumers are
still willing to buy the product even after end of the sales promotion.
This is actually what every marketer wishes for from sales promotions.
This means company was able to create regular consumers with the help
 6 PROMOTION 87

of sales promotion as these consumers keep coming back and buy the
product at post-promotion as pictured in Fig. 6.8b. This could be the
case for the frequently purchased products rather than convenience and
specialty products, but it is a rare case. The most common structure of
lack of post-promotion dip is actually the one pictures in Fig. 6.8a. I will,
alternatively, try to discuss this phenomenon differently as follows.
There are alternative explanations why we observe such lack of post-
promotion dips through understanding consumers stocking decisions and
shopping timings and of course investigating retailers and manufacturers
decisions about sales promotion strategies. For example, some studies
found that household inventory levels have a greater influence on the
purchase decisions for frequently purchased products such as coffee and
tomato sauce.11 In these studies, products such as coffee and tomato
sauce are investigated. But, in this section, I will try to explain this
phenomenon through consumer–brand loyalty and switching behaviors.
Promotions are generally designed to stimulate brand switching behav-
iors and hence attract deal-prone segments rather than brand loyal
consumers. Although some brand loyal consumers buy more than they
need during promotions (especially in frequently purchased product cate-
gories), sales promotions have, in general, limited impact on the loyal
consumers’ purchase decisions. Sometimes loyal consumers even do not
look at product prices; they just grab their products from retail shelves.
Consumers don‘t even remember the information about promoted prod-
ucts after promotions,12 thus repeat purchase rates stay at the same level
after promotions.13 Thus, in general, companies have already had some
base-line sales numbers generated by loyal consumers—which is generally
created with the support of media advertising during long time periods.
Thus, when the promotion ends, the sales numbers draw back to where
the base-line sales numbers generated with brand loyal consumers or thus
with media advertisings as also pictured in Fig. 6.9.
Therefore, if consumer–brand loyalty is high in a frequently purchased
product market, it might be normal to observe the lack of post-promotion
dip. This is because sales promotions have more impact on non-loyals‘
or switchers‘ decisions rather than loyals. Thus, sales numbers get back
the normal levels after promotions, which can be called base-line sales or
brand loyalty levels. On the other hand, if loyalty level is unstable or weak,
base-line sales levels can change easily in post-promotion times. Thus, if
a loyalty level to a product is sensitive to sales promotions, then post-
promotion dips might not be expected. Consumers‘ loyalty level moves
88 S. U. KUCUK

Sales

Brand Switchers—Sales Promotions

Base Line Sales

Brand Loyals—Media Advertising

Time

Period of
Promotion

Fig. 6.9 Alternative explanations of lack of post-promotion dip

and it shifts up and down depends on the effectiveness and power sales
promotions and previous media advertisings.
As a result, marketers need to develop balanced strategic approaches
while utilizing advertising and sales promotions. These two strategies
should be used in ways that they can complement each other rather than
acting like two separate competitive marketing tools. Companies also need
to know that if they use sales promotions constantly, their products are
perceived as low quality and this, in turn, lower consumer loyalty. Thus,
consumers will always be waiting for the next sales promotion cycles to
buy the product instead of buying the product regularly all the time.

Personal Selling
Personal selling might be the most effective way of influencing the
behaviors of buyers or message recipients as it is direct and face-to-face
interactive selling technique. Although it is very effective to influence
the message dissemination process and buyers’ behavior, it is very expen-
sive tool to use for big crowds rather than impacting key buyers. This
promotion tool is widely used in business-to-business interactions while
it was very popular during 60 s and 70 s as personal sellers knocked on
 6 PROMOTION 89

each household’s door one by one to demonstrate and sell their prod-
ucts effectively. Today, this door-knocking sale perceptive is replaced with
email marketing and interactive marketing tools in digital world. Because
it can easily be personalized and be very interactive in nature, personal
selling is very effective in generating customer attention and can be highly
persuasive. However, it can also trigger some privacy concerns if it is not
conducted appropriately. Thus, there are times personal selling techniques
are perceived as hard-selling techniques and privacy invasive.
Every personal selling process starts with defining the needs and wants
of buyers and proposing and implementing a solution for buyer and finally
following up with buyers in post-purchase stages. Personal selling tech-
niques can be perceived as highly manipulative as it is highly persuasive
tool. In traditional selling, this is partially true as seller’s success was
measured by the amount of sale he made at all costs. But this under-
standing started to shift to non-manipulative selling approach as these
kinds of approaches can be seen as pushy sales tactics. Thus, it is important
to investigate such personal selling stages to understand how to develop
non-manipulative and truthful experiences for both seller and buyer as
also pictured in Fig. 6.10.
As it can be seen from Fig. 6.10 that personal selling efforts can
be discussed in four major steps: determination of buyer’s needs,

Focus

HIGH Non-manipulative
Selling

Manipulative
LOW
Selling

Selling Process
Determination Finding Implementing Follow-up
of Solutions Solution
Needs

Fig. 6.10 Mentality shift in personal selling process (Color figure online)
90 S. U. KUCUK

finding solutions, implementing and demonstration solution, and finally

following up with buyer in post-purchase stages. In traditional or
manipulative selling mentality, as pictured with red lines in Fig. 6.10,
salesperson’s success is highly depended on how much need s/he can
create for buyer in situation even buyers don’t need the product. In
other words, salesperson needs to implement manipulative sales tactics
in order to create need that is not exist and/or necessary. But, these
kinds of pushy and manipulative approaches are not acceptable in today’s
world, and consumers demand two-way communication and mutually
understand and thus ask the salesperson understands their needs rather
than pushing them to unneeded products (Alessandara et al., 1979).
Once the consumers find the product for their needs as a result of non-
manipulative sales tactics, as represented with blue lines in Fig. 6.10,
they involve in communication regarding product with salesperson and
thus the rest of the sale process will smoothly end with sales. This major
paradigm shifts from traditional selling techniques to non-manipulative
selling techniques recently gain paramount importance with the advance
of digital shopping tools. Finally, in traditional selling processes, sales-
person generally provides less support as his goal is to sales not building
a long-lasting relationship which is very important in industrial markets
(aka “B2B markets”). Thus, post-purchase support and communication
gains more importance in non-manipulative selling approaches as such
communication reduces potential cognitive dissonance as well.
During any personal selling processes, salesperson’s goal is to elimi-
nate buyer’s concerns to provide a smooth and easy shopping experience.
Buyer’s concerns are generally focused on perceived risks of buying the
product, price of the product/service, consumers’ needs (concerns about
whether the product is needed or not), and how to reach satisfactory or
what kinds of solution will eventually consumer benefit from at the end
of this transaction. Thus, salespeople need to focus on many issues to
develop a successful selling process.
At the beginning of the process, the perceived risks of buying the
product are not that high as consumer is generally not ready, not sure,
or not involved in the product/service. But the more time is spent in the
process, the purchase amount and price get more real, then consumers
may start feeling some risks and perhaps pressure. Price is always an
important factor, and most of the time buyers try to get more concrete
idea about the risk they are taking. Price, in this context, gains moderate
 6 PROMOTION 91

importance at the beginning, but it gets less important in the middle

of the conversation if the consumers get more involved and get into
calculative mode. If consumers make their minds about the potential risk
of buying this product and potential price, they will start questioning
what kind of solution will gain or what benefits they get as a result
of this exchange. This, in turn, increases the importance of potential
solutions related to the product especially at the middle of the conver-
sation. At the final stage, if consumer intention finally gets serious and
that eventually increases the importance of the price-related concerns in
a non-manipulative selling process as also pictured in Fig. 6.11.
In any sales presentation, the challenge is to keep buyers’ attention at
the highest level all the time. Seller needs to develop right communication
and interaction tactics to persuade receiver’s purchase decisions especially
in the middle of the process as buyers’ attention might go down and dry
out. Buyer’s attention level is at a normal level as the starting conversation
about the product and service is new and fresh. Buyers, perhaps, are inter-
ested in the product and willing to learn more about the benefits provided
by the product/service. Thus, the buyer’s (or “message receiver’s”) atten-
tion level is moderate level needs at the beginning of the selling process
as also pictured with message retention curve in Fig. 6.12.
In the middle of sales representation and/or sales conversation, buyer’s
attention starts going down as the receiver might get tired of constant
information load transferred by the seller. As indicated by Moriarty

Risk

Price
Level of Concern

Needs

Solution

Time

Fig. 6.11 Align with the Buyer’s shifting concerns (Source Bosworth [1995])
92 S. U. KUCUK

Introduce key Create Dramatic Summarize

Fig. 6.12 Message points Effects key points
retention curve

Receiver’s Attention Level

(Adapted from Moriarty
et al. [1995])

Beginning Middle Ending

Conversation Period

and Duncan (1995): “keeping attention is harder than getting atten-

tion”. Thus, at the middle stage, everything depends on salesperson’s
communication and conversation talents. In fact, it is even advised to
salesperson to generate some dramatic effects by changing the pace of
conversation, using visual presentations, exaggerating some statements,
ask some questions to improve interactivity, and maximize the atten-
tion and involvement of the customer. In general, the attention level of
customer gets back to normal (or “moderate”) level at the end of the
conversation as the receiver gets excited seeing all the summarized key
points resolved and hence the conclusion is reached as also pictured in
retention curve in Fig. 6.12.
In any sales process, consumer’s commitment to product and purchase
communication is generally lower than salesperson’s expectations at the
first contact. Sales personal needs to work hard to develop a communi-
cation and interaction so that s/he can deliver the product message to
buyer. However, soon after buyer committed to purchase the product,
the roles might eventually reverse as also indicated in Fig. 6.13.
Buyers become more committed to the product as they invested money
and time to the product. Thus, buyers’ expectations are higher even
though the sales personal might think that they are done with their jobs.
This is the stage where manipulative and non-manipulative sales mentality
differ as previously discussed in Fig. 6.10. Such potential interest and
commitment gap between buyer and seller is defined as “relationship gap”
 6 PROMOTION 93

Commitment
Customer

Relationship
Gap

Salesperson

Time
First Contact Sale Post-Sale

Fig. 6.13 Post-sale relationship gap (Source Del Gaizo et al. [2004])

in Fig. 6.13. In this context, it could be fair to say that the bigger the rela-
tionship gap between buyer and seller is, the less likely the buyer stays with
the company, and perhaps switch to another alternative by generating a
very loud and negative word-of-mouth in the market. Thus, salesperson’s
job is not over when the sales over; but, in fact, gains more importance
as both sides get into another interactive communication phase in order
to create ultimate customer satisfaction. The salesperson who ignores and
not involve into buyer relationship in post-purchase stages will eventually
create a one time only sales experience.
A successful personal selling technique, in nature, should focus on
developing and keeping relationship with buyer/consumer. This, in turn,
reveals similarities with the fundamentals of the today’s direct and digital
marketing techniques. Many online companies are fighting for consumer
attention and interest as consumer switching costs are very low in the
digital markets. Thus, post-purchase follow-ups are gaining more impor-
tance as sellers can now easily develop deeper and stronger relationships
with their consumers in the digital markets.

Public Relations
Public Relations is the art of changing public opinion without direct
company intervention. The main goal is to build positive company and
brand image in markets. In other words, public relations don’t have
direct goal to increase sales but indirect impact on sales by informing and
changing the public’s ideas about the company and products/brands in a
positive way. Thus, the goal is to first influence the people who are seen
94 S. U. KUCUK

Company Opinion Leaders

Fig. 6.14 Influence Experts
flow in public relations

PUBLIC

Consumer

as trusted and unbiased, and then later hope that such influence can be
carried to the whole society. Product experts in media or opinion leaders
that everybody respects their opinions can be the target of company-
initiated public relations efforts, and then public, and finally consumers
through such leaders as also pictured with dotted lines (indicating indirect
effects or influences rather than direct impact) in Fig. 6.14.
Opinion Leaders/Experts are generally a member of mass media, third-
party independent organizations, or influential personalities who establish
public trust and respect in their field of expertise. Public opinion can be
easily changed since the public trust such objective and honest opinion
sources (which is represented with direct lined in Fig. 6.14). Once a posi-
tive public opinion and attitude is established in the society, consumers’
behavioral changes can be observed as well. Although company by itself
continues to attempt to influence public opinion (indirectly), opinion
leaders can act like a part of company’s communication process if
there is high-level agreement between these two about the quality of
product/service. Successful public relations eventually build a strong and
long-term company–consumer relationship rather than short-term effects
on consumers as discussed in the sales promotions as it involves unbiased
and honest relationship.
However, everyone has his/her own beliefs about opinions on which
the company attempts to influence or change through public relations.
For example, consumers who can be defined as “extremist” don’t like
changing their ideas and cannot be affected. Some consumers who
are called “apathetic” might have limited interest, while some other
consumers are more concerned about the issue (Lesly, 1998). In general
terms, there is always few extremists can’t change their opinions no
matter what and few interested, highly alert and concern, and hence
 6 PROMOTION 95

pay attention to such public relation efforts. Majority of public probably

do not care too much at the beginning but likely sit back and watch
what happens and make their decisions later. Apathetic are intellectual
and they can easily follow some other discussions if they can lose their
interest. Since they are majority, marketers need to put extra attention
on this group when trying to transform the public opinion. This, in fact,
shows some similarities with diffusion models discussed earlier. In general,
marketers should carefully define such groups and develop appropriate
public relations sources to change the public view.
I have discussed four major promotion techniques individually in the
section. The question, at this point, how to coordinate such individual
promotion elements when developing one major promotion campaign in
order to strength the company’s persuasiveness. In other word, which
promotion element under which situation has more impact on consumer
decision process. The next section has dedicated the answer to these
questions.

Coordination of Promotion Mix Elements

Clearly, each promotion mix element plays different roles in different
capacity of informing and influencing consumers in different purchase
decision-making stages.
Advertising is an effective tool for creating awareness about prod-
ucts and brands and hence informs consumers that the product is out
there and available in the market as it’s a major mass communication
tool. However, advertising is the least effective promotion mix elements
stimulating consumers to buy the product immediately and thus less effec-
tive in purchase stage. Yet, it could be effective as advertising continues
to inform the consumers about how to use, or alternative use of the
product and/or availability of post-purchase services (such as product
guarantees) as indicated with the blue line in Fig. 6.15. Similarly, personal
selling’s importance is high as it focuses on convincing the buyer (espe-
cially in industrial markets) to buy the product. As personal selling success
predominantly depends on building a long-lasting relationship with the
buyer, the importance of technique can still stay higher levels. Sales
promotion can create awareness and can attract consumers to products.
The importance can reach high levels as it can create strong stimulus
with various selling techniques at the point of purchase. The impor-
tance of sales promotion goes down after purchase as all the effort was
96 S. U. KUCUK

HIGH

Importance of Promotion Element Advertising

Personal Selling

Public Relations

Sales Promotion

LOW
Pre-Purchase Purchase Post-Purchase
Consumer Purchase Decision Stages

Fig. 6.15 Promotion mix elements effectiveness (Source Roger et al. [2009])

focused on immediate sales generation. Finally, public relations can be

used to develop positive attitude about products in pre-purchase stages.
Although it is less influential in the purchase stage rather than many
other promotion-mix elements, it can enhance consumer satisfaction if
the influential positive image at the pre-purchase can be affirmed at the
post-purchase stages as also pointed out with going purple downward line
in Fig. 6.15.
Another comparative approach to understand the effectiveness of
promotion mix elements role would be discussing them from Push and
Pull strategies perspective.

Push and Pull Strategies

Push and Pull strategies have two distinct strategic focuses. Pull strategies
focus on building a demand in the consumer markets and try to pull such
demand from the markets to consumption places; while push strategies
focus on pushing the product to the distribution channel members so
that they can pass the products to the consumption. Each promotion mix
element has different level of impacts on distribution channel members
and consumers to create Push and Pull effects.
 6 PROMOTION 97

In this context, if a manufacturer uses “Personal Selling” and “Sales

Promotions” to channel members to increase the channel member’s will-
ingness to carry the product, that can be defined as Push strategy. In
other words, product awareness is created through utilizing and passing
the promotion strategies on to channel members. On the other hand,
consumers are at the center of Pull strategies rather than distribution
channel members in Pull strategies. Pull strategies are generally created
through utilizing “Media Advertisement” and “Public Relations” which,
in nature, to develop consumer attention and awareness. In Pull strategy,
the manufacturer’s goal is to generate market demand before consumers
enter the retail stores with some level of product/brand awareness in
mind to which product to buy whereas in push strategy the goal is to
change consumers previously generated preferences within the retail store.
This is pictured in Fig. 6.16.
As discussed in the “Visualization of Place” chapter, TOMA (Top-
of-Mind-Awareness) can be created through major media advertisement
campaigns. By creating TOMA in consumer minds, companies hope to
change consumers’ preferences before consumers enter retail stores. The
purpose is to create awareness toward manufacturer’s brand even though

PBA

Sales Promotion/Personal Selling

PUSH PUSH
Manufacturer Retailer Consumer

PULL PULL
Manufacturer Retailer Consumer

Media Advertisement/Public Relations

TOMA

Fig. 6.16 Push and pull

98 S. U. KUCUK

consumer is not planning to purchase the advertised item at an expected

time period. If TOMA opens to door to the advertised product, the next
stage is, then, to develop a brand preference and loyalty so that consumer
continues to come to the store or buy the product whenever it is avail-
able. In short, Pull’s success depends on capability of creating TOMA
and later preferred habitual behaviors though media advertisements and
public relations efforts.
In TOMA’s case, consumers generally make their decisions before
consumer entering the retail stores. However, consumers’ preferences
can be changed inside the retail stores under the influence of available
brands with some in-store merchandising support although consumers
have some level TOMA in their minds as discussed broadly in the “Place”
chapter. The way to receive these kinds of in-store support can only be
possible through intensive personal selling and sales promotion efforts
focus on other distribution channel members (mostly retailers). Thus,
the brand awareness created through Push strategies can be associated
with PBA (Push-Based-Awareness) as discussed in “Place” chapter. For
the consumers who have never seen and heard of the product before
point of purchase, the sheer availability of unknown product with in-store
merchandising efforts might create PBA and stimulate brand switching
decision. The most effective strategy could be using both Push and Pull
strategies together in a synchronized manner so that both TOMA and
PBA reaches highest level of effectiveness.
Either brand awareness is created through TOMA or PBA, companies
need to focus on how to turn such brand awareness into brand pref-
erence and then to loyalty. Thus, brand awareness is the first building
block of brand preference, brand loyalty, and finally brand equity. TOMA
and PBA, in this context, are the major antecedents and components of
brand preference as not every consumer is aware of the brand will even-
tually prefer the brand in the long run. Conventionally, it is assumed that
there is a linear relationship between brand awareness and brand prefer-
ence (or one-on-one relationship). In other words, if a company has x
amount of brand awareness in the market, then the company should have
same amount of consumer preferences. This notion, perhaps, could be
more realistic for frequently purchased or impulse products. However, the
recent updated models indicated that awareness and preference relation-
ship should follow an S-curve as also indicated on the right in Fig. 6.17.
The updated model indicates that companies need to maximize their
awareness so that they can achieve desired level of brand preferences.
 6 PROMOTION 99

Traditional Model Updated Model

Successful company

Preference
Preference

Most Companies

Awareness Awareness

Fig. 6.17 Brand awareness and preference model (Source Wirthwein [2008])

Wirthwein (2008) indicates that the brand must, at least initially, reach
to fair level of brand awareness to eventually reach a modest level of pref-
erence. According to the author, company needs to get to 70% awareness
before preference reaches 25% (Wirthwein, 2008: 73). And he believes
that this is the point where preference can really take off. And above 90%
awareness level preference reaches even higher levels as also pictured in
Fig. 6.17.

Conclusion
Promotion is the only marketing mix element which is responsible for
directly talking or communicating with consumers through various tools,
such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and public rela-
tions in the traditional marketing theory. It is one of the most complex
marketing mix elements since it uses more tools than any other marketing
mix elements. That’s perhaps one of the main reasons why promotion, as a
term, was used as equivalence of marketing term for a while. This, eventu-
ally, brought some misconceptualizations and misperceptions about what
promotion is theoretically in various discussions.
Although promotion’s one of the main goals is defined as to inform,
persuade, and remind consumers about company’s offerings, it also goes
beyond such functions and used for building bran identity and personality
and hence as a brand anthropomorphism tool. Promotion, in this context,
barrows some theoretical perspectives from communication, psychology,
sociology, and economics literatures to understand the nature of human
100 S. U. KUCUK

communication and perception of value elements in the markets. In this

respect, promotion is perhaps the most abstract marketing mix element
among all discussed 4P elements. While this, in turn, led many practi-
tioners to question the necessity of promotion as they couldn’t get their
money’s worth immediately in traditional market platforms, it also led
scholars to study this subject intensively to explore and emphasize the
importance of promotion.
Furthermore, although marketers initially utilized one-way commu-
nications with consumers, this has been also changed and company–
consumer two-way communication is now becoming indispensable espe-
cially in today’s digital markets as it will be discussed with greater
detail in the following Part-II. Thus, some of the major promotion
concepts and approaches are applied into today’s digital market commu-
nications. All the figures, graphs, and visuals are introduced here provide
strong theoretical structure for a healthy transformation from tradi-
tional promotion understanding to the digital one. Hence the visuals
provided in this chapter would hopefully provide a better understanding
of how promotion works, and alternatively, why, and when promotion
doesn’t work the way expected to work with more concrete understand-
ings.

Notes
1. Farris et al. (2007, p. 276).
2. Farris et al. (2007, p. 276).
3. Sharp and Romaniuk (2016).
4. Pechman and Stewart (1990).
5. Burton et al. (2019).
6. Hawkins and Hoch (1992).
7. Ibid.
8. Davis (1971).
9. Hartnett et al. (2021).
10. Hartnett et al. (2021).
11. Neslin and Schneider Stone (1996).
12. Davis et al. (1992).
13. Neslin and Shoemaker (1989).
 6 PROMOTION 101

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Sharp, B., & Romaniuk, J. (2016). How brands grow. Oxford University Press.
Tellis J. G. (1998). Advertising and sales promotion strategy. Addison-Wesley
Educational Publishers, Inc.
Vakratsas, D., & Prasad A. N. (2007). Essentials of planning. The Sage handbook
of advertising, 600, 335–350.
Wirthwein, C. (2008). Brand busters: 7 Common mistakes marketers make.
Paramount Market Publishing Inc.
Zielske, A. H. (1959). The remembering and forgetting of advertising. Journal
of Marketing, 23(1), 239–243.
 CHAPTER 7

Marketing Mix Modeling and Coordination

Marketing mix conceptualization has also some flaws. The marketing

mix elements are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the marketing
mix approach not necessarily includes interaction between marketing
mix elements in calculations.1 Thus, after discussing each marketing mix
element one by one in previous sections, it is now necessary to see
how these 4P elements work together and/or interact with each other
and/or perhaps create synergy. It is important to see if any synergy effect
and marketing success can be reached as a result of the interactions of
marketing mix elements. Such interaction and potential synergy effects
could be observed if we can discuss such interactions with the major
marketing concepts developed for different purposes.

Product Life Cycle and Marketing Mix

The first concept to look at is Product Life Cycle (PLC). PLC gives us
a chance to see how each marketing mix element works together in a
different capacity in each stage of PLC throughout product’s life. For
example, in the early stages of product, all the marketing effort focuses
on to creating consumer awareness. The benefits and value can be created
with the new product is needed to be told to the consumers with intensive
promotion efforts. Companies can collect important information about
the product in this early stage. This is the stage where most of the product

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 103

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_7
104 S. U. KUCUK

modification could also be conducted in light of immediate consumer

feedback and requests. Price strategies generally focus on attractive value
for especially frequently purchased items where product quality is not
that dominant as opposite to specialty products. Product availability in
the markets can also generate some level of consumer’s attention as also
discussed with PBA (Push-Based-Awareness) in previous sections. Once
the 4P elements successfully organized and sales targets reached in the
introduction level, competitors would likely to attracted to this market.
Thus, competition in the markets gains speed, and the product needs to
compete with its alternatives and perhaps imitations in the growth stage.
The strategic goal is to focus product differentiation; thus, promotion
gets very important in this stage. Product development can still continue
to find new ways to excel its product. As company tries to differentiate its
product from others, products modification efforts can accelerate as well
(Fig. 7.1).
Pricing can play important role as competition increases in the growth
stage especially for everyday items. Both sales and profits go up during this
growth stage. When the product reaches maturity level, sales start slowing
down and profits start going down. The most important issue is to keep
the price in a right level that sales and profit maximization can be accom-
plished. Since the product is presumably known and habitual buying
behaviors are created, the most important marketing mission could be
preserving the brand loyal consumers. The product, at the end of its life,
can’t generate anymore sales and profits get shrunken. The most impor-
tant step would be prepared to leave the market with even below the cost
prices, thus pricing can still play role in company’s exit strategy. At that
stage, nothing can extend the product’s life neither place nor promotion.
Thus, the most of marketing mix elements have less impact on increasing
sales or profit of the product at the end of its life.

Consumer Decision-Making and Marketing Mix

Another alternative way to look at the marketing mix elements interac-
tion could be through investigating basic consumer shopping decision-
making process. Each marketing mix element plays different role in basic
consumer decision-making process as discussed in consumer behavior
literature. Each marketing mix element’s importance and roles are
discussed in Fig. 7.2 as follows.
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 105

($)

Sales ($)

Profit ($)
+
Time
-

Introduction Growth Maturity Decline

Product H H M L

Price M M H M

Place M H H L

Promotion H H M L

H: high importance, M: medium importance, L: low importance

Fig. 7.1 Product life cycle and marketing mix interplays

In Fig. 7.2, each marketing mix element under consumer decision flow
is indicated with shaded boxes. The first darkest shaded box indicates the
most important marketing mix element in the typical consumer decision-
making process.
In this context, consumer’s desires can be created with stimulating
advertising with a right message and right product and service at the
stimulus stage. In early stages of consumer decision-making process,
consumers are needed to be awakened and realize that they have needs
to specific consumption elements. Desires are burst and can be managed
toward to a product or service that they can satisfy such desires and
needs. This, eventually, makes consumer aware of the problem, or her
106 S. U. KUCUK

Dissatisfied
Satisfied

Problem Information Post

Stimulus Awareness Search Evaluation Purchase Purchase

Promotion Promotion Promotion Product Price Promotion

Product Product Price Place Service

Promotion

Fig. 7.2 Consumer decision making and marketing mix

needs, and act accordingly to satisfy her needs. In both “stimulus”

and “problem awareness” stages, consumers are awakened by the right
products with potential to satisfy the needs with an encouraging and stim-
ulating promotion message. Once the consumer reaches the “information
search” stage, the consumer needs more information about the product
and services. Informative advertising and promotion can play signifi-
cant role in introducing the product/service to the consumer. Later, in
“evaluation of alternatives” stage, consumer’s needs also need price infor-
mation to be able to make some comparisons about value elements of the
product/service s/he is getting. Price starts playing significant role in this
very stage as consumers in general try to get best product with best price.
This, in turn, itself can also be seen as a satisfaction component. Once
the decision is made which product/service to get before making final
purchase decision, consumers need to determine where and when to buy
that specific product/service as also picture in Fig. 7.2. If the product is
available everywhere or easy to find in market, consumer can easily finalize
the purchase where the product is available. If the product is difficult to
find and is not available everywhere in the market (as discussed in distri-
bution elasticity concept in earlier Place chapter), the consumers perhaps
include such costs elements in his/her pricing and value perceptions and
calculations.
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 107

As also indicated in Fig. 7.2, if consumer is satisfied as a result of

such aforementioned exchange, consumer could eventually continue the
same transaction every time s/he needs to that product/service by going
through earlier stages very quickly, in fact, in some incidence without
considering previous stages but purchase stage. However, if consumer is
not satisfied with product/service, s/he can reflect his/her dissatisfaction
which requires successful complaint management. Sales personnel tech-
niques discussed in “Promotion” mix can gain importance in terms of
managing consumer dissatisfaction and thus rehabilitation of consumers
back to the company with satisfying outcomes for both company and
consumers. Otherwise, dissatisfied consumer will eventually go to another
source and starts another search process from the “information search”
stage as pictured in Fig. 7.2.

AIDA and Marketing Mix

The Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA) is a well-known
model in consumer behaviors and personal selling literature that discuss
how consumers can be influenced initially from gaining consumer’s atten-
tion toward leading them to act for a specific goal and direction. The
AIDA model discusses that firstly consumer’s attention needs to be
captured and then later consumer’s involvement should be encouraged to
lead her to make a purchase decision (which is conceptualized as Action).
Thus, each marketing mix element plays different roles in garbing atten-
tion and interest at the beginning and makes her desire to product and
eventually purchase the product as pictured in Fig. 7.3.
One more time, Promotion plays very active role in catching
consumer’s attention as well as product design and features. Price has
a moderate appeal for general shopping goods but higher importance
for especially frequently purchase products at the beginning. When the
consumer starts to be interested in the product, then price plays very
active role to rule consumer’s desires as well. Place is the most impor-
tant element until consumer gets serious and decides to act to buy the
product. Consumer seeks the product to buy it wherever it’s available.
Once the consumer passes the interest and desire stages where psycholog-
ical stimulation is the focus, promotion and product’s importance replace
with price and place as these elements have more transactional focus and
purposes as depicted in Fig. 7.3.
108 S. U. KUCUK

Importance

Price

HIGH
Place

Moderate Promotion

Product

LOW
Stages
Attention Interest Desire Action

Fig. 7.3 AIDA and marketing mix

Branding and Marketing Mix

Marketing mix elements also need to work together when they are
building brands. One of the main goals of companies is to develop
commercially valuable brands that can be recognized and valued by many
all around the world. This is also called building “brand equity”. Brand
equity building also requires well-orchestrated marketing efforts.
In this context, brand building process also goes through different
steps through interacting with marketing mix elements is also pictured
in Fig. 7.4. In fact, it can be said that brand equity is a representation of
accumulated investment of all the marketing mix elements into a brand.2
No company can reach brand equity immediately; it is a continuous
process and takes long time. The first step is to create brand awareness.
Once the consumers are aware the brand in the market, or once company
can be able to get into consumer’s attention span, then they can start a
communication about the brand with consumers. This is similar to what
I discussed in Attention and Interest stages in AIDA model. However,
awareness cannot be momentarily like attention. If consumers can get
satisfied with the brand that they are aware of, the relationship can grow
and lead to brand loyalty. Brand loyalty can be discussed in twofold:
“attitudinal” and “behavioral” brand loyalty.3 Although attitudinal brand
loyalty indicates consumers’ feelings and commitments toward brand,
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 109

Product
Product Quality

Price BRANDING
Value Perception
Discounting
Brand Brand Brand
Awareness Loyalty EQUITY
Promotion
Advertisement
Sales Promotion

Place
Dist. Intensity
Store Image

Fig. 7.4 Branding and marketing mix

behavioral brand loyalty is generally conceptualized with repeat purchase

behavior, or purchase frequency of the brand. Once consumer loyalty can
be established, it means that the brand equity is reached, thus incremental
value added to a product/service. In other words, high brand equity
means consumers have very positively strong feelings about the brand,
that they see the brand as superb quality. Companies can’t get this stage
by themselves unless they know how to utilize marketing mix elements
on the way to reach brand equity.
Research revealed that product and product quality have significant
impact on both brand awareness, loyalty, and finally brand equity as also
pictured in Fig. 6.4. Consumers’ perception of product quality is also
influenced by pricing and advertisement as a promotion element and store
image.4
However, if consumers are offered a price discount frequently that
might impact consumers’ perception of product quality negatively.
Consumers may feel that product is not a good quality, this in turn impact
brand equity negatively as well. This link, in fact, is studied very well
in marketing theory and there are many supporting conclusions about
link between price reductions and product quality.5 On the other hand,
some research revealed that if price promotion is advertised in local news-
papers or local advertisement channels that might eventually increase
repeat purchases (thus loyalty) and reduces consumers brand switching
behaviors.6
110 S. U. KUCUK

Studies showed that there is also link between distribution intensity

and brand awareness7 which reveals itself as market share increases espe-
cially frequently purchased products.8 On the other hand, if a product
is offered in a high-quality retail store that might impact consumers’
perception of product quality and price perception in a positive way.9
It can be pointed out that all of the marketing mix elements may play
important role in building brand awareness, brand loyalty, and eventually
brand equity in different capacities. Promotion mix elements are the most
important tools among all to build stronger brand equity for various types
of products although price and place are stronger tools for building brand
equity for the frequently purchased products. In general, strong brand
equity or brand name eventually can provide an advantage to company
to gain maximum returns and profits from using its brand name with
new line products. Although strong brand names can expand their market
shares by utilizing their own brand name extending product lines, weaker
brand names eventually rely on competitive pricing and aggressive sales
promotions.10

Competitiveness and Marketing Mix

Each marketing mix element has some competitive features. Thus, use of
some specific marketing mix element can be perceived as competitive and
could determine a company’s degree by competitions. In other words,
the way company utilizes marketing mix elements can also be used as an
indicator of the market’s structure and competitiveness.
Intensity of competition in the market can directly affect the config-
uration of marketing mix elements. If there is no competition in the
market or if there is only one producer in the market, the market is
defined as monopoly. Thus, the product is un-substitutable, and the
marketing mix elements will be unimportant and have almost no impact
on consumers as there are no alternative price, promotion, or place. Basi-
cally, the consumers buy whatever is produced and wherever product
is introduced to the markets by the monopolist. Thus, the product is
perhaps the most competitive marketing mix elements. In oligopolistic
markets and specifically monopolistic competitive markets, many inno-
vative and new-to-the-world products are born compared to monopoly
since there are less entry barriers and hence product’s competitiveness
loses steam as also pictured in Fig. 7.5. For example, Apple iPhone was
a big success because the product was unsubstantially unique that the
product created a new market and enjoyed being only product in the
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 111

market as others didn’t have capital not technology to enter this new
market. Hence, it would be fair to say that Apple in early years of smart
phone market enjoyed monopoly like power because of its revolutionary
product. However, that has changed once more companies copied the
technology and decided to enter such market.
In this context, if there are no entry barriers to the market, more
competitors will enter the market with a different capacity. This, in turn,
will increase the intensity of the competition in that specific market. In
this context, if there are a couple of major producers in the market who
produce the similar products, the competition can shape in oligopoly.
With the entrance of new competitors into markets, product loses its
importance, but product differentiation naturally gains more importance.
Products are mostly like each other in oligopolistic markets, promotion
efforts focus on product differentiation is the only way to create sales. In
oligopoly markets, product differentiation can gain more importance as
companies generally produce similar products around the similar price
levels. Thus, companies generally compete with unique brand identity
development efforts supported by major promotion campaigns as indi-
cated with purple line in Fig. 7.5. It can generally be difficult to get into
these oligopolistic markets as there are major capital and copyright/patent
barriers.
When more and more competitors enter the markets and large
numbers of companies start competing in the markets, promotion is not

Importance

HIGH Place

Moderate Price

Promotion

Product
LOW
Competition
Monopoly Oligopoly Monopolistic Pure Intensity
Competition Competition

Fig. 7.5 Competitiveness and marketing mix

112 S. U. KUCUK

as strong competitive tool as price. In these kinds of monopolistic compe-

tition, the focus is pricing for unique but easily substitutable products. If
there are large numbers of competitors in the markets, the market has
monopolistic competition structure. In these types of markets, there are
unique and substitutable products in the markets, and price plays a signif-
icant role in competition as indicated with red lines in Fig. 7.5. Price,
perhaps, is the most competitive marketing mix element among all. It
can be changed in a minute while it is impossible to change the product,
promotion, and brand identity or availability of the product in minutes in
the markets. Thus, sudden price changes can be sensed by the competitors
as it directly impacts companies’ revenues and profitability. On the other
hand, the company should be careful making any sharp pricing changes
as it is directly linked to product quality while promotion intensity is not
(Carpenter, 1987).
When market reaches pure competitiveness, the products are all similar
and at some point identical everywhere in the markets as there are large
numbers of competitors in the markets. As the only way to make a differ-
ence in the market is to be able to be available everywhere at any time so
that consumers can easily find the product whenever they need it. Thus,
distribution and place play important role in pure competition markets as
also indicated with exponentially increasing blue line in Fig. 7.5.

Market Share and Marketing Mix

In any types of competitive market, a company’s ultimate goal is to focus
on the right marketing mix combinations that can increase Market Share
(MS). MS is a major competitiveness and hence success indicator of a
company compared to other available incumbents. In this context, the
smaller or shrinking market share values indicate major problems in the
company which might require a major strategic change. It simply indi-
cates how much revenue can a company generates compared to other
competitors.
Sales revenues (compare to the other incumbents’) can come from
three major sources which directly impact the market share values. These
are namely: Penetration (PEN), Brand Loyalty (BL), and Usage (USE);
and can be formulated as follows11 :

MS ≡ PEN × BL × USE
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 113

As discussed earlier, PEN indicates the ratio of people buy the product
at least once in a given time period in a given population, while BL
indicates how often these consumers buy the product (or simply repeat
purchase rations) and finally USE indicates how many these consumers
buy the product in that specific period. In order to reach high PEN
numbers, company needs to inform and convince them to purchase the
product through serious promotion efforts supported with distribution.
Otherwise, consumers can’t be able to test or buy the product at least
once. Thus, promotion and place play significant role in generating pene-
tration. On the other hand, the company needs to create repeat and
continues purchases by providing highly satisfying product/service expe-
rience supported with brand identity and purchase reminding oriented
promotion campaigns. Thus, loyalty, as an important component of
MS, can be created and enhanced by satisfying products and services as
well as promotion. There is also well-known rule called 20/80, which
indicates companies 80% of their sales comes from 20% of their loyal
consumers. Thus, the importance of consumer loyalty on MS can be seen
as paramount especially in service sectors. Finally, the amount consumers
want to buy can directly be affected by the price of the product and
availability of the product. In other words, USE can directly be under
influence of price and place components in many competitive environ-
ments. Thus, stable, and competitive market share directly related to right
combination of marketing mix elements for long-lasting market presence.
Similarly, market conditions can eventually influence the performance
of the marketing mix elements. In this context, if the market growth
rate is high, the company should be able to grow and increase its market
share as well. However, when market grows significantly but the compa-
ny’s market share shrinks means the company is facing a major problem.
The company should go over each marketing mix element and ques-
tions its strategic direction. Alternatively, it is possible that the company’s
market share is thriving while market growth rate is descending. Thus, the
company can perhaps enjoy the progress and increase its sales as much as
possible. That point, place, and pricing can gain more importance as the
company tries to reach whole market to satisfy the already compromised
needs. Finally, when market is growing and the company’s market share
is also increasing, it means that the company perhaps found its own niche
and it should keep going on the same orientation.
114 S. U. KUCUK

Conclusion
Coordination of marketing mix elements in different marketing scenarios
is necessary to understand each marketing mix element’s individual contri-
bution to a whole marketing system. This kind of system approach would
also help marketing practitioners and scholars to discover the limits and
hidden potentials of each marketing mix element. In other words, each
marketing mix element could be considered as an individual tool in a
toolbox, and marketers need to know when, how, and in which capacity
to use such tools when they are trying to fix potential marketing prob-
lems. Furthermore, well-orchestrated use of such marketing mix elements
would also lead to marketing synergy effects in the markets, which could
be seen as a hidden marketing force. Thus, coordinated use of such
marketing mix elements sits at the heart of marketing success. In this
context, the figures, graphs, and visuals discussed in this chapter hope-
fully open the door for better understanding of marketing mix elements
and their coordinated impacts.

Notes
1. Gronroos (1994).
2. Yoo et al. (2000).
3. Oliver (1999).
4. Yoo et al. (2000).
5. Carpenter (1987).
6. Carpenter and Lehman (1985).
7. Kucuk (2008), Kucuk (2011).
8. Reibstein and Farris (1995).
9. Grewal et al. (1998).
10. Carpenter and Lehman (1985).
11. Ailawadi et al. (2001).

References
Carpenter, S. G. (1987). Modeling competitive marketing strategies: The impact
of marketing-mix relationships and industry structure. Marketing Science,
6(2), 208–221.
Carpenter, G. S., & Lehman, D. R. (1985). A model of marketing mix, brand
switching, and competition. Journal of Marketing Research, 22(3), 318–329.
 7 MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 115

Grewal, D., Krishnan, R., Baker, J., & Borin, N. (1998). The effects of
store name, brand name and price discounts on consumers’ evaluations and
purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing, 74(3), 331–352.
Gronroos, C. (1994). From marketing mix to relationship marketing: Towards a
paradigm shift in marketing. Management Decision, 32(2), 4–20.
Kucuk, S. U. (2008). Can distribution explain double jeopardy patterns?
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 36(5), 409–425.
Kucuk, S. U. (2011). Push-based brand awareness: The role of product avail-
ability and in-store merchandising. The International Review of Retail,
Distribution and Consumer Research, 21(3), 201–213.
Kusum, A. L., Lehman, D. R., & Neslin, S. A. (2001, January). Market response
to a major policy change in the marketing mix: Learning from procter &
gamble’s value pricing. Journal of Marketing, 65(1), 44–61.
Oliver, L. Richard (1999). Whence consumer loyalty? Journal of Marketing, 63
(Special Issue), 33–44.
Reibstein, D., & Farris, P. (1995). Market share and distribution: A gener-
alization, a speculation and some implications. Marketing Science, 14(3),
G190–G202.
Yoo, B., Donthu, N., & Lee, S. (2000). An examination of selected marketing
mix elements and brand equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
28(2), 195–211.
 PART II

Digital Marketing Visualizations

 CHAPTER 8

Digital Marketing and Digital Marketing Mix

In the first part of the book, I have discussed 4Ps which were also labeled
as “traditional marketing mix” elements. However, marketing theory
and understanding have undergone fundamental changes during the last
couple of decades as the Internet has given rise to more sophisticated
consumers, more fragmented markets, and dynamically changing media
communication technologies and infrastructures. What we are seeing
today is a major marketing thought transformation, with increasingly
active market involvement by consumers which is having a fundamental
impact on many business and marketing operations today. This consumer
revolution, in which consumers are empowered and/or are acting as
equal alternative agents and players in markets, has not been previously
observed with this scale in traditional marketing.1 Such historic shift
is discussed by Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007: 46) as follows: “The
industrial revolution was to manufacturers what the digital revolution is
to consumers ”. As a result, traditional business models need to evolve
in a new direction to survive such dynamically changing market struc-
tures and relationships. Clearly, traditional marketing mix elements by
themselves have a limited capacity to build marketing value in the digital
environments similar to they used to in traditional and physical market
environments. Thus, without an understanding of today’s digital value
elements and their interaction with traditional marketing-mix elements,
all the money spent by businesses on the 4Ps would eventually be wasted

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 119

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_8
120 S. U. KUCUK

or at the least will be misdirected and mismanaged. Clearly marketing

discipline has been in a transition last couple of decades now and the
discipline is trying to figure out where to head in this new digital world.
Balancing such changing market needs and power dynamics in the digital
world is an everyday challenge for companies and consumers alike. In this
context, there is a need for re-conceptualizations of new digital marketing
value drivers and understanding of new market meaning creation systems
in order to keep up with such challenges. Thus, this new part, Part-II,
focuses on such transformative changes in today’s marketing world as a
result of mentioned digital revolution.
As a result, this chapter attempts to fill such gap by defining “Digital
Marketing” and discussing the conceptualization of new digital marketing
value drivers in order to understand such transforming changes in today’s
new marketing world. Furthermore, the chapter proposes new marketing
value drivers with the related literature and visual representations as well
as potential synergy effects within such digital value elements, which will
be discussed in separate chapters in this new section.

Definition of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing transactions are reaching trillions of dollars and the
projections are still indicating that the growth of digital markets will
continue to rise. Companies are shifting their operations from phys-
ical marketing environments to digital platforms and purely new digital
companies are originating everyday as consumers are also increas-
ingly adopting and enjoying what digital markets introduced to them.
However, it would be fair to say that there is no one agreed official and
scholarly definition of the term among marketing scholars or institutions
yet. So, I can’t stop asking: “What is digital marketing?”
Although scholars used various terms such as internet marketing, web
marketing or online marketing at the beginning, these concepts eventu-
ally merged later into one broader term: “Digital Marketing”. Because
digital marketing is so much so revolutionary and hence transformed
many aspects of company marketing operations and consumer shopping
behaviors, some initially view the concept as a new marketing channel and
some others saw as a new promotion strategy. Yet, none of the perspec-
tives were able to fully cover and define what the term is to the best of my
knowledge. In this context, the concept, in a most simplistic perspective,
was defined as “promote brands through various forms of digital media”.2
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 121

Some other scholars defined digital marketing concepts as traditional

marketing with technologic steroids as follows: “an adaptive, technology-
enabled process by which firms collaborate with customers and partners
to jointly create, communicate, deliver, and sustain value for all stake-
holders ” (Kannan & Li, 2017: 23). Such “create, communicate, deliver
and sustain value” is a typical explanation of marketing mix used by AMA
(American Marketing Association) as discussed in Chapter 2. Thus, this
definition was also not able to capture the essence of the dynamically
changing digital marketing concept as it seems not clear what are the
original and authentic value creation elements of digital marketing. Some
other sources also define digital marketing as the combination of search
engine marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, influencer
marketing, and so on. Hence, this view defined digital marketing as the
collections of digital marketing techniques without any conceptual merit.
Yet the most comprehensive definition of digital marketing can be found
at the AMA website as follows:

Digital marketing is the use of digital or social channels to promote a

brand or reach consumers. This kind of marketing can be executed on the
internet, social media, search engines, mobile devices, and other channels.
It requires new ways of marketing to consumers and understanding the
impact of their behavior.3

Digital marketing is clearly more than solely communicating with

consumers and/or promoting company’s products/services; thus, a new
holistic perspective was needed. However, AMA’s definition seems also to
only counting various digital marketing techniques and it seems to define
digital marketing from only a “promotion” perspective which is one of
traditional marketing mix elements. Furthermore, the definition intro-
duces digital marketing as a collection of digital marketing techniques
without providing any conceptual infrastructure nor any theoretical direc-
tions. Thus, the definition doesn’t really stand on a strong conceptual
ground like traditional marketing mix elements do. In other words,
current definitions focus on the aspects of communicating with consumers
or define digital marketing only from advertising point of view. In this
definition, some important aspects of digital marketing were ignored,
hence it is necessary to discuss such aspects to reach most fulfilling
conceptualization of the concept, and this section is aimed to fill this gap.
122 S. U. KUCUK

In this context, I believe digital marketing needs a new and compre-

hensive definition as each digital tool is being used to develop product to
pricing to delivering created value in different ways and capacities. Hence,
any definition that neglects such issues could not provide a comprehensive
and complete definition and conceptualization of digital marketing. For
this purpose, I will attempt to re-define digital marketing in this section
which can also provide a new conceptual foundation of the concept and
the future of marketing in general as follows:

Digital Marketing is a combination of digital value creation activities, either

consumer and/or company originated, that enhances consumers ‘connec-
tivity’ with markets, development of likeable digital ‘content’ that can be
shareable among consumer ‘communities’ and markets to build a long
lasting ‘committed’ digital relationship with all market agents in the digital
world.

In this context, such new value elements could also be conceptualized as

today’s new “digital marketing mix” elements, or 4Cs, “connectivity”,
“commitment”, “community”, and “content”. The first component is
“connectivity” and the other one is “content” and “community”, and
finally a “commitment”.4 Connectivity focuses on developing marketing
value through creating “addressable” and “findable” value as will be
discussed in Chapter 9. Content is creating consumer value through like-
ability or “likeable” content for the all-potential receivers, users, and
consumers as also broadly discussed in Chapter 10. Similarly, as more
consumers started to co-inhabiting in digital spaces where they produce,
consume, and evaluate products and services in online communities
and social networks. Thus, “shareability” of information with others is
the main value function of these communities, including social media
networks, for the others use and consumption as discussed in Chapter 11.
Finally, because of the lack of trustworthy tools and personal physical
touch in the digital platforms, predictability and credibility of merchant is
perceived as a major threat in the digital markets. Eventually, it is easier
to run into false, fake, and unverified information on many digital plat-
forms, which lead to failed consumption mentality and wrong practices
that will be discussed in Chapter 12. Thus, this newly introduced major
components of 4Cs requires a systematic investigation. Specifically, what
kinds of consumer needs such new 4Cs satisfy in the digital world and
how such 4Cs fit in traditional marketing understanding and if they have
enough conceptual power to influence the future of marketing thought.
These issues are all need a close theoretical investigation.
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 123

Hierarchy of Consumer Digital Needs

All these mentioned 4C elements are designed to understand consumers
needs in today’s dynamically changing digital universe. Clearly, market
value is built around what consumers need which they sometimes are
aware of such needs and sometimes not. In other words, what is needed
by consumers will eventually determine what would be valued in the
markets. Thus, understanding fulfillable needs would be the first step of
understanding such value elements in any market5 before reaching some
conceptualization of a marketing phenomenon or concept and marketing
tools.
On the very basic level, every consumer should have access to markets
so that they can access the value they are looking for. That can be concep-
tualized as “Connectivity” as today’s consumers’ value being able to reach
markets whenever and wherever. Yet, some are hesitant to connect to
digital markets as there are various security and safety problems associ-
ated with who to and how to communicate with unknown market players.
Thus, building trustworthy connections and committed relationships in
today’s markets is in jeopardy since the digital markets are less regulated
compared to its traditional counterparts. “Commitment”, in this sense,
could be seen as another value element in the digital world. Despite
potential risks with meeting strangers, the internet provided broader social
spaces in which consumers can easily socialize and befriend the people
they feel close to. That, in turn, introduces another important value
element in the digital world: “Community”. In communities, consumers
develop new identities and share their ideas and creations to fulfill their
esteem, acquiring reinforcement for their new identities. These ideas and
consumer created digital content and expressions are valued by other
agents in the market, both companies and consumers. For the first time
in business history, consumer self-expression is monetized by markets and
sits at the heart of the value creation process. This creates another value
element: “Content”. Overall, this fourfold conceptualization of value
elements shows similarities with Maslow (1943) “hierarchy of needs”,
with three factorial needs hierarchy format, as pictured in Fig. 8.1.
In Maslow’s model, physiologic and safety needs are defined as “Basic
Needs”, while social needs are defined as “Psychological Needs”. Lastly,
esteem needs are conceptualized within “Self-Fulfillment Needs”. In this
context, “Connectivity” and “Commitment”, as new digital marketing
value elements, can be classified within “Basic Needs”. “Community”, in
124 S. U. KUCUK

CONTENT Self-Fulfilment Needs

COMMUNITY Psychological Needs

COMMITMENT
Basic Needs

CONNECTIVITY

Fig. 8.1 Hierarchy of consumer digital needs (Source The Author’s)

this context, satisfies their “Psychological Needs” as consumers wanting

to connect with others through social interaction in digital spaces. “Con-
tent” can also help consumers to satisfy their “Self-Fulfillment Needs” by
utilizing self-expression and creating their own creations free from their
physical form identities (such as age, gender, etc.) as you can anonymously
be anybody or anything at any time in the digital world. This identity
liberation could make it easier for consumers to connect with different
objects and create new semiotic rules. Thus, hierarchical needs in today’s
digital world can be conceptualized as a “hierarchy of digital needs” as
pictured in Fig. 8.1.
Connectivity is a basic need as no one can enter the digital world
without it. The need to connect to the digital world is so much needed
these days that access to the internet is increasingly defined as a necessity
and even considered as a new and basic “consumer right”.6 But connec-
tivity by itself is not enough as various threats, dangers, and menaces are
also today’s reality in the digital world. Thus, secure, and safe connectivity
is also another basic need as no patronage or consumption can happen
without trustworthy and secure connectivity. Once these basic needs
are satisfied, consumer can also satisfy their social needs by connecting
with others, whoever they feel close to, even strangers, in digital social
places. This satisfies consumers psychological needs as they share their
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 125

feelings, emotions, and/or worries with loved ones. In digital spaces,

consumers unleash their true identities with their creation of new content
to self-fulfill themselves as the final stage of reaching self-actualization in
the digital universe. Consumer-generated content is creating an alternate
universe that used to be a company playground. This new form of inde-
pendence from company-created content is a real emancipation of the
consumer self.
Although such consumers’ digital hierarchical needs could provide a
new way to look at consumers need in the digital world, the interac-
tion of such new digital value elements is also constant with traditional
value elements, hence the potential interaction of such old and new value
elements should also be closely investigated.

The Interaction of 4Ps and 4Cs

It is also necessary to discuss the potential impact of such digital
marketing 4C elements on traditional marketing mix elements or 4Ps
to clarify the difference and similarities between these two important
marketing perspectives. This, in turn, also helps us clearly position digital
marketing in general marketing thought. Although such digital marketing
mix elements provide new value elements in the digital world, their inter-
actions with traditional marketing mix elements, or 4Ps, also necessary
to provide a macro marketing view to discuss how such different world’s
value elements interact or in which capacity impact each other.
In this context, it would be fair to indicate that “connectivity” is the
door that opens to the digital world. Without high connectivity, which
indicates easy accessibility to digital universe from different tools from
different locations instantly, connectivity could not be established. Indi-
vidual consumer or consumer “communities” enter through this door
into the digital world where digital “content”, either in a small smart-
phone or a computer screen, presents various types of products at varying
price options and availabilities in the markets with different stories and
messages in the digital world as also pictured in Fig. 8.2. On the other
hand, consumers’ interactions from entering to exiting the digital world
carry some risks that we have never witnessed before since the “snake-oil
salesman” times. Thus, company-to-consumer as well as consumer-to-
consumer communications and relationships are dealing with new forms
126 S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 8.2 The interaction of traditional and digital marketing mix elements
(Source The Author’s)

of threats that need to be addressed with “commitment” building strate-

gies in the digital marketing platforms. Without trust to company, or
consumer or a content, digital marketing could not be existed.
In these mushrooming new developments with the advent of the
digital tools, many scholars and practitioners naturally defined such
specific new tools and perspectives one by one. Such developments,
which are coming from different angles, that define the soul of such new
economic and marketing systems need to be discussed in a more compre-
hensive and unified perspective. Some defined this new socio-economic
system “digital economy”7 or “consumer-driven digital economy”,8 the
other defined “attention economy”9 or “sharing economy”10 or “trust
economy”,11 as indicated in Table 8.1. However, none of these concep-
tualizations, by themselves, explains and covers the conceptual vastness
of today’s digital marketing and economic systems. Such newly proposed
4C marketing value conceptualization could further be more capable of
covering the features of all these aforementioned economic systems in
this respect. Thus, connectivity which indicates the consumers accessi-
bility to the net from various touch points could be related to digital and
data economy point of view while content could directly be linked to
attention economy as companies are trying various forms of content to
get the consumers attention in innovative ways every day in the digital
markets. Community and sharing economy are almost used synonyms
of each other as sharing economy couldn’t have been exist without
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 127

Table 8.1 Traditional vs. digital marketing value elements

4Ps 4Cs Economic system

Product (creating value) Connectivity (addressability and Digital economy

findability)
Price (exchanging value) Content (likeability) Attention economy
Place (delivering value) Community (shareability) Sharing economy
Promotion (communicating Commitment (credibility and Trust economy
value) predictability)

online communities. Lastly, without trust and commitment among market

actors, economic and marketing systems can collapse, hence commitment
could be directly linked to trust economy in this context. In today’s
markets where free flow of misleading information and company commit-
ments, trust, one more time, is found to be major value element in the
digital markets.
Overall, the traditional marketing mix elements are as important as in
old times with different capacities and functions. Yet, the 4Ps’ success
is highly depended on today’s digital marketing mix elements, or 4Cs.
Such integrative view provided in Fig. 8.2. clearly defines the role of both
traditional and digital marketing mix elements in this context, but there is
still a need to discuss such digital marketing mix elements’ role in digital
market value creation processes individually in detail.

Transformation with Digital Marketing

Companies conventionally have had more control over value-creation
processes and hence in their marketing mix elements in physical markets.
However, with the advent of the Internet the power has been shifted from
marketers-to-consumers in these value creation processes, or at the least it
seems such power dynamics between consumers and companies has been
somewhat balanced in favor of consumers. This section, in this context,
discusses such transformations from traditional marketing perspective to
today’s new digital marketing mix elements and value creation processes.
In order to analyze and hence understand such transition, the new
value elements should be put on a theoretical and conceptual test with
traditional value elements. Thus, two important questions could be
128 S. U. KUCUK

discussed when we are discussing this transformation to see the big picture
of today’s digital marketing and its value elements as follows:

1. How and in which capacity 4Cs interact with 4Ps? (Between

perspective)
2. How do 4Cs interact with each other? (Within perspective)

The answer of the first question would be articulated by discussing differ-

ences between the 4Ps and 4Cs one by one in this section as also
summarized in Table 8.1. But the answer of the second question will be
discussed throughout the following chapters and introduced at the end of
this new part as a new chapter entitled “Digital Marketing Mix Modeling
and Coordination”, Chapter 13.

Connectivity
In a traditional marketing world, consumers and companies need to phys-
ically available in the markets at the same time to be able to benefit
from each other and hence market value created for consumption. This
physical availability condition creates limitation for market agents which
eventually kept market size relatively smaller compared to digital markets
in which physical existence is not a necessity. Technically it is impossible
to reach whole world markets or make everybody available physically in
a market or a place at the same time all around the world. This could
be only possible in the digital world as many people from all around the
world could be present at the same time at the same place. All market
agents can easily access to local and world markets with a simple click or
tip of their tombs on the Internet. Speed and flexibility of such digital
technologies enhanced market agents’ ability to connect each other and
with the markets. Thus, connectivity is a fundamental 4C element, and
no other 4C elements can reach a marketing success without connecting
with consumers especially in the digital markets. Connectivity is the door
opens to digital marketing world. Without connectivity you are stuck in
traditional physical markets’ limited options with high opportunity costs.
In fact, today’s consumers can not only connect with markets and other
consumers with one tool or one medium but also many different techno-
logical devices through their computers, smartphones, tablets at a coffee
shop, home, or even in your bed, basically anywhere at any time. This,
I believe, brought hyper-connected consumers, companies, and society
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 129

at large in one place. Such hyper-connectivity brought speed and conve-

nience in our lives and introduced us to today’s “consumer-driven digital
economy”. In this respect, there are different ways to connect with
consumers in the digital markets as conceptualized as “addressability” and
“findability”. In addressability, company is the initiator of the connection
with consumers while roles change in findability as consumers initiate
the communication with company and try to find the right value with
various digital tools in the markets. Such changes provided new direc-
tions to today’s marketing and economic systems, company operations,
and product development processes as also discussed in detail below:

Product: Companies can easily follow constantly changing consumer

trends at anytime and anywhere in today’s hyper-
connectivity market environments. Now consumers are
the leading change forces in the markets, and hence we
are at the tipping point of the consumer-driven digital
economy which is considerably different than the traditional
company-created product-driven economy. In this hyper-
connectivity age, companies are not only required to talking
with consumers all the time but also, they act like partners
living in the same universe. Thus, traditional product devel-
opment and segmentation strategies are not necessarily valid
anymore. In traditional marketing, companies’ segmenta-
tion strategies basically focused on finding homogeneous
segments based on some consumer attributes. Although
some of such segmentation mentality is still partially true
in the digital world, some marketers underestimated the
rising importance of customization and personalization of
individual consumer needs and hence wrongly assumed
that marketer-generated value systems should be good
enough for everybody in a segment at the beginning of
the digital revolution. Today, each individual consumer
requires individualized/personalized products/services and
content from a variety of sources and companies. Thus,
consumers are no longer old passive acceptors of what-
ever is produced by companies, they are rather co-producers
of market value creation processes.12 Now, companies
need consumers more than ever to develop new products,
services, contents, and brands.
130 S. U. KUCUK

In these environments, consumers have become actively connected

and involved in their communications with markets about products and
services, and hence they started to act as co-producers or equal partners of
products/brands/contents creation processes rather than as passive accep-
tors of company-created (in some cases dictated) value elements as in
traditional marketing.13 In other words, product development function
has been shifted from company-to-consumers with “open source” and
“user-generated content” (UGC) systems. Thus, companies now need
to connect with consumers more than ever to develop new products,
services, contents, and brands, which later gave a birth to “prosumer”
(producer consumers) idea. Many companies are now getting more help
from consumers by directly connecting them in their native digital habitat,
online communities, and social networking environments (aka “crowd
sourcing”14 ), while some others invite them to their operations (address-
ability), as also discussed in Table 8.2. Without connectivity, consumer
product ideas would be stuck within friend conversation circles and never
see the light of the day. In other words, connectivity is a victory for
consumer voice and hence modern marketing production thought.15

Price: With the increasing hyper-connectivity, now more and more

consumers and companies can easily access to the digital
markets, and hence markets size get bigger and more crowded
and more transparent as anybody can easily access markets
and product/service information from everywhere at any time.
Part of the reason is that the Internet has reduced many
barriers to market entry,16 reducing market imperfections and
increasing competition in favor of consumers. Hence more
companies can be able to access the markets, which means
more options, and hence increasing competition and better
value for consumers. Consumers can now have access better
options using comparative search engines and hence can also
easily detect “price discrimination” and “unfair valuation”
practices in the digital markets.17

Because of the Internet’s democratic architecture, now anybody can

sell anything, and hence every market agent can reach various market
value options in the digital markets. This, further, created a new type
of market: “consumer-to-consumer” markets, or “online second-hand
markets”,18 aka “C2C markets” (e.g., Offer Up), as alternative to compa-
ny’s value construction systems in the digital world. The lower prices
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 131

Table 8.2 The interaction of digital and traditional marketing mix elements
4Cs 4Ps

Product Price Place Promotion

“Creating” “Exchanging” “Delivering” “Communicating”
value value value value

Connectivity Crowdsourcing C2C markets Consumer Email marketing

“Addressability” Open source E-auctions logistics Search engine
“Findability” User-generated Comparative Free-riding marketing
content SEM Omnichannel Domain name
marketing branding
Content Personalization Transparency Showrooming Content marketing
“Likeability” Website Hidden fees Reverse Content mix
interface distribution management
Community Open source Collective Availability Social media
“Shareability” Crowdsourcing pricing sharing marketing
Dynamic Content Viral marketing
pricing distribution Influencer
Price marketing
transparency
Commitment Ethics Hidden fees Self-delivery Paid-consumers
“Credibility” code/return Price matching Delivery Influencer
“Predictability” policy tracking system marketing
Consumer
complaint
management

and thrill of finding great deals in these C2C markets attract more
consumers to such new value centers.19 In these new markets, compa-
nies are not sellers but mediators of the sales of products/services,
hence it would be fair to indicate that C2C marketing is in practice
today. Finally, such changes increased number of participants in auctions,
aka “e-auctions” (e.g., eBay) because of such hyper-connectivity, and
hence auction mechanism have reached the highest economic efficiency
and their full potentials since their inventions since greater number of
consumers can now connect to e-auctions compare to traditional auctions.
In other words, increasing market transparency and competition reduce
company-dominated price control in the markets as such transparency
empowers consumers economically.20 Overall, it should be emphasized
that “connectivity” is a major price transparency and hence equalizer
function with the help of comparative search engines as it is almost
possible to reach all the price options available in the markets if you have
the tools and knowledge of how to access such price information. As a
result, consumer can now easily change the direction of consumption
132 S. U. KUCUK

to the better valued products/services in the blink of an eye. This was

not possible without high consumer connectivity among consumers and
market agents in today’s digital markets.

Place: In today’s information rich market environments,

consumers now can easily access product logistics infor-
mation because of high findability, which enables them
to locate where the product is in distribution channel or
even within the physical stores. This is conceptualized as
“consumer logistics awareness”21 or simply “consumer
logistics”. As a result, consumers can now know which
products/services are available at which price in the
markets and utilize their shopping experience to make
more profit. Consumers can now collect information on
the Internet by using search engines or listening to what
other like-minded consumers are talking about in their
blogs or social networks and visit retail stores to experi-
ence the product in the physical store environments with
the help of sales personnel in the physical retail stores;
yet buy from a digital retailer. Thus, when there are
two alternative universes, physical and digital, competing
each other, such “free riding” behaviors are eventually
inevitable. In other words, because of hyper-connectivity
and hence price transparency, consumer free-riding
behaviors were increased as consumers use one store
services to learn about products/services but purchase
from where the product/service is discounted online
after benefiting from physical retail stores’ services.22
This, in turn, brought retailers, that highly depended
on pre- and post-purchase consumer services for product
success, to an end as companies no need to compete
for consumer services but price in the digital world.23
On the other hand, sharing product logistics information
with markets helped consumers their products wher-
ever they are available. And this, in turn, gave birth
to “omnichannel marketing”. Omnichannel marketing is
granting consumers ultimate access to product/service
availability information across all distribution system to
optimize consumer satisfaction and engagement at the
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 133

end of the shopping process. This, in turn, eliminates

consumers’ channel hopping behaviors from one compa-
ny’s system to another, which discourage free-riding, and
hence keeps consumers with the company and happy. As
a result, such omnichannel marketing mentality further
increased consumer accessibility to options to market
value and hence push the connectivity levels with compa-
nies and markets in new highs.
Promotion: Connecting and communicating with consumers is an
intimate, complex, and multifaceted job in the digital
world. Now, companies can easily find their consumers,
so do consumers companies and other like-minded
consumers because of hyper-connectivity. Thus, connec-
tivity gained a new meaning in the digital world as
feedback loops from consumers-to-companies are wide
open and shared with everybody in the digital world.
There is not only one source, who is traditionally
company, and many passive receivers, who are tradition-
ally consumers, in the digital platforms. Today, consumers
could now be a source and a powerful media broad-
casters like companies, and they can communicate with
their receivers actively 24/7 through various media tools
and options. Hence, consumers can have more control on
media messaging than their predecessors. Companies are
using “email marketing” and “domain name marketing”,
which indicates company’s addressability, and “search
engine marketing” (SEM) tools, which indicates compa-
ny’s findability, to optimize their reach in markets as
also pointed out in Table 8.2. Through promoted links
inserted in emails, consumers are directed to compa-
ny’s domain while consumers can also reach company’s
domain through searching them on the Internet. With
advance of mobile marketing technologies, company and
now consumer message can easily reach consumers many
times, and this eventually enhance message adoption.
Companies need to develop addressable connectivity and
boost their findability in the digital markets to connect
with their consumers. Otherwise, their existence in the
digital markets will be jeopardized, and not long lived.
134 S. U. KUCUK

As a result, it would be fair to conceptualize connectivity

as an independent and a new marketing value element in
the digital markets.

Content
One side effect of hyper-connectivity is increasing amount of messaging
and content in the digital world. This, eventually, reversely affects
consumers attention as we, consumers, can’t process every informa-
tion in today’s crowded communication platforms. Consumer attention
became scarce commodity, and hence we ushered what some scholars call
“attention economy”.24
The first thing consumers face is the company’s website on their
computer or smartphone screens is the content used in such commu-
nications. This, in turn, is the first impression of consumers about the
company’s digital presence and identity through website content. The
content that carries various attractive and interactive digital content
that encourages consumers to link to product and/or service informa-
tion. Alternatively, consumers are now experiencing other content-based
universes and develop alternative reality with the help of such content
(e.g., Meta). Although content is a powerful tool to develop alterna-
tive universes for consumers, content, from business and marketing point
of view, is how consumers and/or followers are seeing companies and
associate the company with its own content. Similarly, now consumers
are getting tech-savvy and started to develop their own content alter-
ative to company-created contents and meaning systems in the digital
world. This, in turn, create alternative meaning systems and have poten-
tial to change course of consumer consumption practices. Although such
consumer content creators could be any citizens who are interested in
brands and/or general consumption issues and hence practicing their
first amendment free speech rights in the markets with their creations,
they could also company financed and/or supported content creators
such as consumer influencers.25 In general, such consumer creativity is
better received by other consumers than company or marketer-created
content and messages since these consumers are communicating with
their like-minded fellow consumers in the digital world. Either consumer
or company-created, content as a new marketing value element focuses
on providing a content that is “likeable” to users with the help of useful
and ease to use website interface options, which is also conceptualized as
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 135

“likeability” as in Table 8.1. Thus, in this new economic system, if your

content is not “likeable”, then you receive no attention which means you
have no business value. In this context, content’s impact on traditional
4Ps should be analyzed closely as also discussed below:

Product: Products, in their physical environments, were tested and

evaluated within stores most of the time in traditional
marketing. Yet, most of the products/services are now eval-
uated in review boards and decisions were made before ever
entering the stores, on the company’s websites, or third-
party review boards in the digital universe. Thus, when you
talk about products/services in the digital world, you are
talking about how you put product information and content
in front of consumers that can grab their attention and
later engagement to the product/service. One way to do
that is finding the right consumers who are willing to learn
more about your product (addressability) by personalizing
the communication with consumers, which is also defined
as “personalization”. Consumers can directly interact with
product content and even contribute to product develop-
ment and branding ideas. Likeability of content could be
higher as consumers get what they want, and hence atten-
tion would be preserved. In this context, consumers can
easily switch other consumption destinations without a hesi-
tation if companies can’t create interactive interfaces and
likable website designs and content to provide an attractive
product/brand experiences for their consumers.

Furthermore, with the increasing advancement of user-friendly tech-

nologies in the digital world (visual, written, audio, video contents),
now anybody can create their own content by using such digital tools.
However, this, in turn, also increased voice pollution26 in digital markets
as consumer attention is becoming a very scarce commodity in the digital
world. In a way, companies are now competing with their own consumers
to get other consumers’ attention in the markets. Overall, it would be fair
to say that UGC and web design marketing approaches focus on content
production while personalization focuses on consumption of content.
136 S. U. KUCUK

Interestingly, content could be the product itself in information consump-

tion, functions similar to what we know in traditional marketing, but
could also be a complimentary marketing service and promotion tool
for physical products. Either way, likeability of product content would
determine scale of the consumption.

Price: It could be fair to say that content has limited impact on

traditional pricing philosophy. The change is mostly happened
in the presentation of price and value elements, and in fact
psychological pricing tactics, in the digital world rather than
construction of price mechanism in markets. In the traditional
physical store formats, consumer decisions can be influenced
by where and how the price is introduced in the stores as
they can be influenced by flashy banners, or even the font of
numbers used for the price.27 However, this might not be true
all the time in the digital markets. Recent research indicated
if the price is emphasized more than the product features in
company website, the product may be perceived as low quality
when there are no other indicators of product quality. Thus,
not only how a company reaches consumer-influenced value
pricing, but also how these prices are introduced in company
websites and/or email campaigns with right content is crucial
for price success in the digital world.

Today, digital technology and platforms provide richer text, pictures,

audios, and videos in the presentation of price better than physical store
tools. Using the right color and font in the product/service prices and
presentation of the price and price-related information in the right places
on your website and your emails would eventually impact consumers
purchase decision.28 In this context, price content should make it
clear the “hidden costs” to consumers. Last minute surprises caused
by confusing and/or misrepresented content will eventually increase
consumer dissatisfaction with the company and the process. It seems,
content, as a new digital marketing mix element, plays significant role
in development of psychologic pricing which covers consumers way of
perceiving and calculating the price, rather than cost or demand-based
price determinations, which also broadly discussed in Pricing chapter of
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 137

this book. In its core, “transparency” of final price with right content
would influence consumers’ value perception and shopping quality.

Place: Today, most of the shopping decisions are made on the screen
rather than within a physical retail store. This, in turn, reduced
to need for retail store visits and increased the need for
showrooms in case consumers need to try on or test some
products. This is also called “showrooming”, a new type of
retail stores only carries limited number of products for inter-
ested consumers (e.g., Amazon 4-star stores). In this context,
it would be fair to say that website content is now replaced
the physical store’s aisles and shelves with their information
rich content. Similarly, website content that shares product
logistics information and provides easy ordering options would
also reduce the possible misunderstandings and shopping risks
which negatively impact consumers purchase decisions. Inter-
active web content now makes possible to test a sunglass
or a dress on the screen of your mobile phone and order
the product with a tip of your finger in a second. If that
still doesn’t help the consumers, showrooming is an alterna-
tive option to test such products and gain firsthand expertise
support in a physical environment. But showrooms don’t
care big inventory like traditional retail stores. Thus, inven-
tory costs are eliminated with interactive content tools in the
digital world. However, this also increased the product returns
as consumers couldn’t still make their minds and frequently
feel cognitive dissonance because of the differences between
products’ physical and digital looks and features, and hence
consumers return to the product to the supplier. In fact,
consumer returns reach significantly high levels that companies
needed to understand how successfully control the products
travel back from consumers to factory, aka “reverse distribu-
tion”, which also increased waste and economic loss in our
societies.29 Under these circumstances, return policies became
one of the most important elements of company’s content
strategies as well.
138 S. U. KUCUK

Retail stores not only make products available for consumers, but also,
they provide information and expertise through their sales personnel in
the physical store setting. Such sales personnel support helps consumers
to shape their final decisions every step away in the retail store. Such
retail sales personnel support (e.g., BestBuy or Home Depot personnel on
the sale floor) are also important components of distribution from tradi-
tional marketing point of view. However, such sales personnel support
is left to the content design and strategy in the digital markets. As a
result, companies need to understand how consumers utilize product
and logistics content presented in the digital platforms and develop right
content in order to reduce negative effects of potential free-riding behav-
iors and channel cannibalizations. The content that makes it possible to
smooth transitioning from one channel to another to find the right prod-
ucts/services will eventually enhance omnichannel marketing success and
consumer satisfaction in digital shopping processes.

Promotion: As some practitioners pointed out “content is the king”

in this attention scares digital world. And hence, creating
“likeable” content that can gain everybody’s attention
and break the information clutter is the main goal of
content-creation processes. Everything consumers see
in their screen is content, some wanted and some
not wanted or clutter. Content simply tells how your
consumers or audience are seeing you. Thus, compa-
nies and even consumers need to develop right content
strategy that reflects their brand identity, personality,
and essence. Everything is written and said through
texts, pictures, or videos in the digital content simply
tells something about you. Such efforts eventually lead
to “content marketing” where companies consistently
create and deliver well-defined content to an audience
wanted to be influenced.30 Thus, content marketing in
today’s attention economy should be designed to create
awareness with clutter-breaking and engaging content. In
general, though, content marketing focuses on develop-
ment of right content for the right people to enhance the
likability of the content and message.
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 139

Like promotion mix elements, today a new set of content mix elements
are also developed as all consumers utilize and consume different types of
content. The content mix elements are written, audio, visual, and video
content and used to develop effective impact on consumers. This, in turn,
defined as “content mix management” and indicates the coordination and
integrated use of such content mix elements for the best message deliver-
ability in markets. Content marketing is a backbone of every pure content
company such as YouTube or partially content oriented companies such
as Uber or Airbnb. All these companies’ success highly depended on how
they manage such content mix elements with the help of personalization
and “artificial intelligence” (AI) tools created for best consumer expe-
riences in the digital world. With such content, today, companies and
consumers created a new type of reality is developed with “virtual reality”
(VR) tools in the content-rich digital universe in which meaning has been
totally altered and transformed with digital substitutes.
From strictly business point of view, though, content marketing plays
an important role in informing consumers about products and services
and tries to persuade consumers in the digital markets. Any content
used or developed by content creators should cover clear information
about the value of retail services and expertise so that consumers gain
a better appreciation of the services they are getting. Thus, content,
itself, could be considered as a powerful promotion tool from the tradi-
tional marketing perspective. As a digital media tool, content marketing
can also help develop brand identity and increase brand awareness and
brand visibility in the digital platforms when the content goes viral.
Eventually, highly likable content can also become viral. In this context,
content is not limited to company’s website but also social media plat-
forms where companies constantly publish news and stories about their
brands. Many content creators, either is a company, who is developing a
content on the company website, or an ordinary consumer, who is posting
his/her creation of content, are dealing with shortening consumer atten-
tion span, and increasing information overload. The more attention is
gained from consumers, the higher the advertising income would be,
for even consumer creators. And that could be only possible with right
content marketing that carefully balances content mix elements in content
and message creation processes.
140 S. U. KUCUK

Community
In the past, only a few who are geographically close each other could
be able to form a community and some sort of unity make them feel
be part of something bigger than themselves. Although millions of miles
apart, consumers can now connect other like-minded consumers, share
their experiences with products/services, and act together to discover
and satisfy their social needs because of hyper-connectivity introduced
by the digital technologies. In this environment, consumers with similar
interests naturally attracted to each other, and new friendships, collab-
orations, social networks, and hence online communities are organically
formed in many digital platforms. While digital communities are growing
in numbers, their influence started to be felt in consumer decision-making
processes, public views, and market voice.31 Online communities’ power
on markets grew when they share their views on community members and
markets and activate them to act on a certain way. Thus, such communi-
ties started to act like an alternative market agent alternative to companies
in the digital world. “Shareability” of likable content or unused or inert
assets with other community members and markets eventually created a
new economic system, called “sharing economy”.32 In this context, it can
be fair to say that Content and Community are two related 4C elements
since if the content is likable, then it is shareable too. Thus, community
as another digital value creation elements changed the 4Ps and needs to
be discussed in detail as follows:

Product: Members of such online communities create their own

solutions regarding company products/services and hence
are even capable of changing consumption motives.33
When consumers started to share their stories about
company products/services within their communities or
social networks, they, in fact, partially involve meaning
creation processes. New meanings and realities regarding
products/services alternative to marketer-created and
intended meaning systems within such digital communities.
Online communities are productive platforms for innova-
tive product/service ideas. The fact that many innovative
ideas come directly from the consumers, hence from end-
users, the feasibility of some of such ideas to turn to be
a successful product is very high. Thus, “open source”
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 141

and “crowdsourcing”,34 one more time, sit at the heart

of community-based product/service idea development as
well. Some communities go beyond simple product/service
idea sharing function, and they create 3D (three dimen-
sional) and fundamentally alternative live forms in the
digital world, called “Metaverse”.35 The rules are re-
written, and roles of consumers and company interactions
are fundamentally changed as consumers started to produce
for themselves not for companies. Since these ideas are
consumers, they are highly shareable. Companies that are
aware of creativity of such online communities eventually
try to tap into these online platforms to learn from their
consumers in every opportunity. In this respect, online
communities are turned out to be hotbed of UGC (User-
Generated Content) as community members started to
create their own meaning systems with products and brands,
sometimes targeting (anti-brand hate social media sites) and
other times supporting (social media fan sites) corporate
business philosophy and brands.36 Thus, it would be fair to
say that UGC is theoretically where connectivity, content,
and community all intercept and create chain reactions in
digital world.
Price: Consumers in online platforms can easily develop collec-
tive and/or collaborative consumption behaviors37 that can
change the course of consumption in the markets. Collec-
tive purchasing power of such communities can eventually
reduce the product/service prices when companies receive
bulk orders from these communities. Some companies are
happy to reduce their prices as long as they can reach the
company’s break-even goals. Sheer number of these crowds
is sometimes so much so higher that their collective deci-
sion can easily change many companies’ price calculations.
It could be fair to say that demand-based pricing strategies
could play significant role in market valuation as demand of
products/services could easily be shifted by these commu-
nities’ collective actions. Thus, their collective power can
eventually turn into economic power as they stimulate
consumption of the products/services that fits communi-
ty’s needs and value systems. That could also be defined
142 S. U. KUCUK

as “collective pricing” as the price will change depending

on how many people order the product with the online
community’s initiative. Or alternatively they discourage the
consumption of brands and products that don’t serve the
communities beliefs.

In other words, with the emerge of online communities, fragmented

market demand is now aggregated in such communities. Crowds of digital
community can have strong negotiation power of price as they order
higher quantities together and hence change the companies price calcu-
lations for the benefits of consumers. Traditionally, companies needed to
sell enough product/service to reach break-even point before making any
profit. The availability of community level aggregated demand eventu-
ally could push market price down to the levels where companies’ sales
volume and revenue are maximized at a manageable profit level for the
company. In other words, such online communities are transforming cost-
based pricing into consumer-influenced value and demand pricing in the
digital world. That’s, perhaps, one of the reasons it is easy to find various
price options and relatively lower priced items in the digital markets. Simi-
larly, such communities are great sources to understand how consumers
value company products/prices. In other words, one product/service
has no value for one could be highly valued if the right group of
consumers or a community is reached. Thus, in online communities, espe-
cially in C2C and e-auction communities, which function quite differently
than traditional markets, it is highly possible that many unwanted prod-
ucts/services can find value and priced accordingly. From junk to luxury,
everything could be valued in the right digital communities, and price
of products/services could also change even minute-to-minute based on
community member’s need. Thus, digital communities provided new
venues for “dynamic pricing” as well as increased “price transparency”.

Place: It would be fair to say that online communities and

social networks have indirect and limited impact on phys-
ical product distribution channels. One aspect, as also
discussed similarly in Price subsection, online consumer
communities have collective bargaining power which
could eventually make demand forecasting easier when
consumers order products together in bulk. This means
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 143

less out-of-stock (OOS) incidents and more predictable

distribution systems. Similarly, companies can follow
consumer posts or tweets that endorsing the prod-
ucts/services as an early indicator of future demand
and align their distribution accordingly to satisfy the
demand in a timely matter. Further, the major advan-
tage of community is to have many individuals work
for each other’s and community’s wellbeing. And hence,
one community member’s awareness of product avail-
ability would help to another member who needs the
products/services in the market.38 Sharing informa-
tion regarding availability of a product at a specific
price and retail location could easily activate numerous
other consumers in the same network, conceptualized
here as “availability sharing”. However, this could only
be possible for specialty products not for frequently
purchased items unless there is a state of emergency (e.g.,
OOS of toilet paper and other daily items during Covid
pandemic). Finally, distribution shifted its function from
physical product distribution to digital “content distribu-
tion” to consumers. By sharing the content in their social
media feeds and online community platforms, consumers
play active role in distributing various content in the
digital world. Thus, it seems online communities have
more direct impact on content distribution rather than
physical product distribution in the digital world.
Promotion: Online communities, especially social network sites, have
significant impact on message creation and develop-
ment processes in the digital universe. They get so
much so effective that consumer-generated branding
and advertising messages are now competing with
company-generated messages in online communities and
digital markets. Clearly, companies have less control on
active market message creation as opposed to tradi-
tional marketing environments and hence consumers
are gaining greater control over media selection for
purchase decisions and message dissemination in the
digital markets because of the network effects.39
144 S. U. KUCUK

Online communities and social networking sites are platforms where

companies can meet, develop content, and spread messages with their
consumers. This, in turn, created a new type of marketing, what we
call now “social media marketing” (SMM). In this context, SMM is
one of the major promotion tools that can be used within social media
platforms to build brand awareness40 and brand loyalty.41 Similarly,
companies can develop engaging and long-term relationships with their
consumers through various SMM tools.42 Although companies can create
their own content and messages to communicate with their consumers,
majority of messages are created by consumers in the social media
and online communities. Such consumer-generated message and content
developed in social media are perceived more trustworthy than marketer
or company-created marketing messages. This, in turn, increased the value
of consumer-generated content in consumption world. Once an impor-
tant or engaging message from a trusted or admired member is shared
with others in an online community, it is likely that such message could
easily spread the whole community and beyond because it comes from
a known and admired fellow consumer. Majority of the online commu-
nities have connected each other through their common members, an
entertaining and engaging content can travel easily faster than tradi-
tional marketing tools.43 In other words, companies are now losing
their traditional power of messaging to consumers with the rise of social
networks and online communities as consumers can now easily create
their own “e-WOM” and “viral marketing” campaigns free from corpo-
rate filtering systems. Thus, companies are slowly losing the control of
their market voice to consumers.44 When, especially, consumers are upset
with the company/brand, they can also generate negative e-WOM in their
communities45 which can spillover whole market and can negatively even
impact company brand value.46
Some community members’ messages get easily viral than others and
reach more people and far corners of digital platforms. And hence,
companies are trying to be benefitted from such influence and focused
on promoting their products with the help such individuals to gain more
control on market voice and hence to promote the consumption of their
products/services. This, in turn, created another important marketing
technique called “influencer marketing”.47 Clearly, everything shared in
these digital communities and social networks have marketing value for
companies as they shape today’s consumption markets.
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 145

Overall, online communities and social networks are being treated as

both message creation sources and target audiences where such messages
are received and consumed. Thus, companies need to learn how a simple
online post or message can get viral easily and how it impacts company
messaging and branding communication through e-WOM and viral
marketing tool for successful company–consumer communication. Thus,
the marketing power of such online communities come from their ability
to create new ideas and consumption value systems that can be “share-
able” within their communities and eventually within whole markets. As
a result, the major value element of online communities can bring to
digital marketing mix is conceptualized as “shareability” as also indicated
in Table 8.1.

Commitment
Digital universe is less regulated as legal systems can’t keep up with
the pace of technologic changes. Thus, today’s consumers are getting
more vulnerable as various types of new digital threats are appearing
every day. In this context, it is almost not surprising to run into false,
fake, misleading, and/or unverified information and/or messages that can
lead us wrong consumption practices every day. Hence, it seems today’s
consumers are left the mercy of scammers in the digital world.48 As
digital vulnerabilities are growing faster than regulative protections, iden-
tity thefts, invasive digital sales tactics and privacy invasions are still very
much a threat in front of secure communications in the digital markets.49
Under these circumstances, it would be fair to say that it is hard to find
trustworthy trade partner, company, or even consumer in the digital world
because of the lack of trust building face-to-face communications, like in
the traditional markets, in this new medium. In addition to these third-
party threats, companies’ inability to deliver promised value causes trust
and commitment issues.
Without trust and commitment among market actors, any marketing
and economic systems can eventually collapse. Thus, scholars similarly
defined today’s digital markets as “trust economy”50 in which trust could
be used as a today’s new type of currency51 in our daily digital rela-
tionships. Trust, once it’s established, can open many doors especially
in the digital world. In other words, when the trust was established
among different parties, the hope is to reach a committed and long-lasting
relationship and hence business patronage. In this context, committed
146 S. U. KUCUK

relationship cannot be easily reached without trust since trust is precursor

of commitment.52 In other words, once trust, and following commitment
are established, consumer patronage and loyalty would be easy to reach.53
Traditionally, building a trustworthy and commitment communication
was generally the company’s duties. However, since now consumers
are also actively communicating, trust and commitment gained more
importance in consumer-to-consumer communication as well. Because
everybody can raise their voice in an equal footing on the digital plat-
forms, it is difficult to differentiate what is right and what is wrong, and
hence building trustworthy and committed relationship. Thus, “credi-
bility” and “predictability” of both consumer and company voices and
operations could be determined as digital marketing success as also
indicated in Table 8.1.

Product: Commitment has very limited impact on product devel-

opment and pre-purchase stages than post-purchase stages.
Potential perception differences of product/service in the
physical world and on screen could cause consumer dissat-
isfaction in post-purchase stages. Sometimes the color or the
size of product does not look as attractive as on the screen
than physical platform, thus consumers need predictable
features about what to expect from the company. This
might lead to increased consumer frustration and hence
product return in post-purchase stages. Consumers either
directly share their frustration with company and other like-
minded consumers in their online community if they are
dissatisfied with return and consumer services. If similar
problems continue in the following shopping attempts, the
consumer commitment can eventually be deteriorated. Such
product/brand failures can easily be shared within online
consumer communities with other potential and current
buyers and hence this can generate new waves of disap-
proval among product’s users. Thus, such disgruntled loyal
consumers could cost company more other consumers once
such negativity shared with markets. If the disgruntled
consumer is a loyal consumer, it would be much costlier to
gain such loyal consumers back as their dissatisfaction can
turn into disgust, anger, and in fact hate.54
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 147

Thus, company’s “ethical codes” and “return policies” on how they

regulate consumer relationships when things go wrong play significant
role in the digital world. In fact, company could even reshape its potential
new product development strategies in light of these consumer feedbacks
in the future. In this context, integration of commitment strengthening
strategies such as “compensation” and “product guarantee” into reverse
distribution system is inevitable to manage consumer relationships in a
positive way. In some circumstances, consumers could unconsciously end
up buying a product they don’t want to, and could find themselves
fighting with company algorithms, that are not sensitive to consumer
psychology. Or even consumer consciously buys the products, they don’t
like the product or consumer service they get, and hence they could
feel misled. Either way, consumers will blame the company and its
inability to understand and develop timely and effective communication
and compensation systems to keep consumer trust and commitment in
a manageable level. Thus, consumer relationship and complaint manage-
ment mentality gain much more importance in today’s digital world as
tiny little product/service problems can turn into much bigger prob-
lems for companies and message creators. Yet, the traditional complaint
management mentality is no longer valid in today’s digital platforms, and
hence companies need to adapt themselves to such changes. Well executed
“consumer complaint management” systems could save committed and
loyal consumers falling into generating hateful speech targeting company
and increase company’s credibility.

Price: The difference between introduced price and actual purchase

price might lead to feeling of betrayal for consumers. This
is most of the case in the digital shopping environments
when product/service prices don’t clearly emphasize ship-
ping costs or any other possible unknown “hidden fees”. And
hence, this could trigger major trust and commitment prob-
lems as consumers might feel betrayal since they pay more
than they expected. Similarly, this is also one of the major
reasons behind increasing shopping cart dop out rates in many
digital shopping platforms as consumers felt the price was
not clearly presented or they feel over-charged in the digital
platform. Thus, such problems lead to strong consumers
feeling of betrayal. Furthermore, companies’ price discrimi-
nation strategies can easily be detected by consumers in the
148 S. U. KUCUK

digital world with the help of comparative search engines and

consumers high connectivity to other sources, which, in turn,
leads to another company–consumer trust and commitment
issues.55 Thus, any “price matching” tools would fix poten-
tial commitment problems, especially with loyal consumers,
before consumers felt betrayal. Knowing that they are getting
fair value whatever the company offers to provide predictability
which enhances company’s credibility.
Place: Once the ordered product left the company, company has a
limited control over safe and timely delivery of the product.
In today’s relatively less predictable distribution environments,
there could be many things go wrong. Product could be
delivered to wrong hands, at wrong time and place, and pack-
ages could be smashed or stolen, and so on. Consumers are
especially extra sensitive about the timely delivery of their
orders to desired destinations on special times. Think about
receiving your Christmas or Hannukah or Eid present days
after whole excitement was gone. Or, receiving your Pizza you
have ordered for dinner at midnight. Such disappointment can
eventually generate similar trust and commitment problems
between consumers and companies.

In traditional marketing environments, consumers used to visit retailer

for the products, but in today’s digital markets products travel to back
to consumers. In other words, distribution was over once consumers
visit retail location while digital markets added new levels to distribution
systems as products are delivered to consumers’ house or location. This,
in turn, increases the number of products in distribution and delivery
systems, which cause new and complicated problems as discussed above.
Hence company commitments can’t always be committed. Considering
today’s digital retailers such as Amazon deliver hundreds of millions of
products daily, company commitment to deliver order on time and in
good conditions can’t always be warranted. Thus, Amazon finds solution
to develop its own distribution system (aka “self-delivery”) so that they
can have better control over distribution, and they can keep their commit-
ments to the consumers to restore trust to their company.56 On the other
hand, today’s companies are also providing “delivery tracking systems” to
consumers so that they can also see where their order is in the distri-
bution system. This way, consumers are also feeling not left out in the
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 149

dark, and the blame could also be shared with distruster not only digital
retailer. At the least, such tracking systems provide transparency and hence
help consumers to manage their expectations by focusing other alterna-
tive solution. Transparency and predictability eventually help consumers
to manage their feelings of betrayal to companies in the digital world.

Promotion: Digital world provided information rich universe.

However, this caused information inflation and over-
load in markets created mostly by consumers by them-
selves and new sector of message creators, trolls, and
bots, who most of time aim at their own agenda
with misleading and fraudulent outcomes for consumers.
Thus, consumer voice is in danger of being hijacked
by such trolls and other taleteller consumers, which, in
turn, hurts consumers’ choice and wellbeing in digital
markets.57 As a result, marketer and/or company-created
media messages, which is already not trusted that much,
lose their impact while consumer-generated content and
message attracted more attention and trust in digital
markets,58 as consumers tended to trust their like-
minded fellow consumers more than company messages.
In order to tap into consumer trust circles, companies
are trying to new ways to earn consumer trust and
credibility back and started to hire other like-minded
consumers for message dissemination efforts. This new
type of company supported consumer messengers, also
called “paid-bloggers”, “paid-consumers”, or “bribed-
consumers”, are also raised the concerns about credibility
of consumer voice. However, recent legal rulings, espe-
cially from FDA, made such “paid-consumers” to declare
what they got paid or received any gift for talking and
promoting about company products/services. The fact
that many consumers have somebody to look up to, aka
“influencers”, and follow in social media, they don’t mind
if such influencers are paid by the company or not. This,
in turn, gave a birth to a new type of marketing practice
called “influencer marketing”.59 In this context, it would
be fair to say that influencer marketing was born of the
150 S. U. KUCUK

need for more credibility and predictability in the digital

markets.

Overall, “commitment” plays a significant role in the digital platforms

as many consumers would like consistency between what they think
company/brand represents and what and how the company/brand
performs. The perception differences between these two eventually lead
to feeling betrayal. Trolls’ efforts to pull consumers in their sides with
untrue and misleading messages should increase the company’s effort to
develop a trustworthy and committed relationship with their consumers in
the digital world. Thus, commitment as a new marketing value element
indicates the importance of “credibility” and “predictability” as uncer-
tainty reducers for satisfactory and long-lasting marketing relationships in
various digital marketing platforms as also pointed out in Table 8.1.

Conclusion
Digital revolution created new economic systems from digital economy
to attention economy to sharing economy to trust economy. Traditional
marketing value elements or 4Ps are fundamentally changed because of
decades long digital transformation in today’s markets. In fact, it seems
“marketing” term is now used as an equivalence of “digital marketing”
in some academic and practitioner circles. Thus, if companies, and even
consumer creators, really want to reach consumer minds and hearts, they
need to use today’s digital tools effectively and be part of the digital value
creation processes.
In this context, the exploration of each new marketing value driver
in today’s online markets is indispensable as capturing consumer atten-
tion with traditional promotion and communication tools is in sharp
decline. Companies need to understand the changes in the marketing
mix elements in order to complement the weakening functions of tradi-
tional marketing mix elements with new digital marketing value-creation
elements (4Cs). The evolution of such digital value elements, 4Cs, from
traditional 4P elements are also summarized in Table 8.2. in this chapter’s
context.
As summarized in Table 8.2, most of the change seems happening
in Promotion as the Internet is used as a major communication
channel. Similarly, the internet increased consumer involvement into
product/service innovation and development. Another transformation
 8 DIGITAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING MIX 151

is happening in both Price and Place as the Internet brought trans-

parency in market valuation and product logistic systems as indicated in
Table 8.2. These new digital marketing mix elements do not always create
perfect solutions, and in fact, they sometimes create new problems for the
company if you don’t know how to utilize such digital tools as discussed
above. Therefore, the following chapters in the second part of this book
discuss such newly proposed digital marketing value elements or digital
marketing mix elements in detail with visualization examples similar to
the first part of the book.

Notes
1. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007) and Kucuk (2009a).
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20171129124232/lexicon.ft.com/Term?
term=digital-marketing.
3. https://www.ama.org/topics/digital-marketing/.
4. Kucuk (2011).
5. Almquist et al. (2016).
6. Kucuk (2016).
7. Brynjolfsson and Kahin (2002).
8. Tapscott (1996) and Ng (2014).
9. Goldhaber (1997) and Ciampaglia et al. (2015).
10. Cheng (2016) and Eckhardt et al. (2019).
11. Diekhöner (2017).
12. Stewart and Pavlou (2002) and Kucuk (2009a).
13. Stewart and Pavlou (2002).
14. Sterne (2010) and Mathieson (2010).
15. Kucuk (2020).
16. O’Rourke (2000) and Brynjolfsson et al. (2003).
17. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
18. Fernando et al. (2018).
19. Gopalakrishnan and Matthews (2018).
20. Kucuk (2009a, 2009b).
21. Teller et al. (2006).
22. Kucuk and Maddux (2010).
23. Doane et al. (2013).
24. Ciampaglia et al. (2015).
25. Kucuk (2020).
26. Kucuk (2020).
27. Doyle and Bottomley (2004).
28. Kucuk (2011).
29. Ginter and Starling (1978).
152 S. U. KUCUK

30. Content Marketing Institute, https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/

what-is-content-marketing/ visited on September 13, 2022.
31. Kucuk (2020).
32. Hamari et al. (2016).
33. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
34. Sterne (2010) and Mathieson (2010).
35. Sparkes (2021).
36. Kucuk (2010).
37. Hamari et al. (2016).
38. Kucuk (2020).
39. Kucuk (2009a, 2009b, 2020) and Sterne (2010).
40. Gunelius (2011).
41. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010).
42. Ashley and Tuten (2015).
43. Sterne (2010) and Mathieson (2010).
44. Kucuk (2020).
45. Kucuk (2008).
46. Kucuk (2008, 2010).
47. Hughes et al. (2019).
48. Kucuk (2016).
49. Kucuk (2016).
50. Diekhöner (2017).
51. Saha (2020).
52. Garbarino and Johnson (1999).
53. Fullerton (2003).
54. Kucuk (2010, 2019).
55. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
56. Finley (2013).
57. Kucuk (2020).
58. Bickart and Schindler (2001) and Johnson and Kaye (2004).
59. Hughes et al. (2019).

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 CHAPTER 9

Connectivity

Connectivity is the first step in successful value-creation processes on the

Internet. No company or commercial entity can create value without
connecting with consumers or make them to connect the company.
Although it seems easier to connect with greater numbers of consumers
because of the availability of high connectivity options in the digital world,
this could not be as easy as initially assumed. However, such connec-
tivity options could be narrowed down to two fundamental approaches.
In general, there are two major ways to connect with consumers on the
Internet, which can be functionalized as enhanced “addressability” of
the company’s website and “findability” of the website by consumers.1
Company addressability means that the company tries directly to reach
the consumers and share its message with them while company findability
means that the company makes itself available and provides every clue and
information to consumers so that they can find the company when they
needed as also pictured in Fig. 9.1.
In this context, addressability and findability work similarly to push and
pull strategies discussed in traditional marketing. In other words, address-
ability, which includes email marketing, and findability, which covers
domain name branding and search engine marketing, can be today’s
digital world’s push and pull strategies. Email marketing as an address-
ability tool is initiated directly from the company-to-consumer while
domain name branding, and search engine marketing efforts focused on

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 157

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_9
158 S. U. KUCUK

Addressability
COMPANY CONSUMER
Findability

Fig. 9.1 Addressability and findability

consumers who initiated a product and service search to satisfy their

needs. From a traditional push vs pull point of view, email marketing can
be classified as an invasive push strategy as emails can distract consumers
from self-directed search while search engine marketing can be classified
as a noninvasive pull strategy as consumers start their search without any
distraction.2 Thus, in this study’s context, email marketing can be consid-
ered as a new push strategy, and domain name branding and search engine
marketing can be considered as today’s pull strategy.
Traditionally, the strategic purpose of the push is to push the products
to markets with the help of distribution channel members and retailers’
in-store merchandising support; however, pull strategies’ main purpose
is to create a strong brand preference or brand loyalty through using
media advertisements so that consumer demand can be pulled from the
markets. Because of the opposing movement of communication strate-
gies, push strategies are often perceived as aggressive strategies while pull
strategies are seen as more defensive.3 Similarly, today’s email marketing
efforts are mostly perceived as SPAM and hard-sale tactics that consumers
want to avoid. On the other hand, today’s websites function like a retail-
er’s shelf. Some websites or domain names are branded well than others
and can be reached in different ways. This, in turn, increased the need for
omnichannel marketing strategies as well. While some consumers log on
to the specific domain names knowing what they are looking for before-
hand, others prefer to use search engines—similar to a consumer being
under the influence of traditional retailers’ in-store merchandising efforts.
The ultimate goal is to connect with consumers. And, each connectivity
option, addressability, and findability has its pros and cons on reaching
and connecting with consumers, hence, these reversely acting business
philosophies need to be discussed individually in separate sections as
follows.
 9 CONNECTIVITY 159

Addressability
Addressability means that a company has knowledge about the consumer
and targets or addresses the information to a consumer or consumer
segment/s. In addressability, the action starts from company-to-
consumer, as indicated in Fig. 9.1. The company assumption is that
consumers already needed their products/services and/or they can create
a need for their products/services by directly connecting with them.
This was the same marketing and sales mentality when salesmen visited
consumers by knocking door-to-door in the 60s and/or sending mails or
coupons to consumers later times. Today, such addressability approach
can be established through finding interested consumers and emailing
them with products/service information and offers. In this context, email
marketing can be defined as a major addressability tool of connectivity
component of today’s modern marketing thought.

Email Marketing
Recent statistics show that 4 billion people has email accounts in 2020 and
the number is expected to increase 4.6 billion people by 2025.4 The same
statistics also revealed that about 306 billion email messages were received
or sent every day in 2020. Thus, email is one of the major communication
tools and continues to be in the future even with the increased use of
mobile technologies as it seems millennials are also spending an average
of more than 6 hours with their emails every day.5 In other words, email
marketing can be an excellent way to directly connect with consumers
who are interested in your products/services as over 90% of consumers
were interested in promotional emails.6 That’s one of the major reasons
why email marketing is ranked in the top of the list of small business
marketing tactics.7
However, there have been many misunderstandings about email
marketing. It is helpful to first define what email marketing is not,
rather than what it is. Email marketing is not sending lots of emails to
consumers who do not have any interest in your message. It is not about
putting your message into a whisky bottle and throwing it into the ocean
in the hope that somebody somehow finds it and contacts you. Email
marketing is about communicating with consumers who are most likely
to be interested in your products/services. The expected result is to even-
tually direct interested consumers to the company’s website via the links
160 S. U. KUCUK

embedded in the company’s email. If it’s done properly and targeted to

the right people, email marketing can be a very lucrative business tactic.
However, if such efforts are perceived as SPAM or unwanted and unso-
licited commercial email message the user receives over and over again,
email marketing can create more harm than benefits. In that case, as right-
fully discussed by Pavlov et al., (2008: 1191), it can be said that “email
marketing may be its own worst enemy”.
An email marketing campaign starts with picking the right consumers
who are willing to receive your email. This is also known as “permis-
sion marketing” as sending emails to consumers without their consent
will eventually trigger feelings that your emails are SPAM. At that point,
everything you did won’t generate any income but create psychological
costs for consumers and perhaps negative WOM (word-of-mouth) about
your business because of such a psychological burden. In order to not
fall into SPAM fault, each step of email marketing should be analyzed
individually as also indicated in Fig. 9.2.
Everything starts when a consumer receives an email from a company.
Once the consumers open the email, s/he will decide in a couple of
seconds whether the email is really what s/he wanted or not. Consumers
might want to make sure that s/he gave permission to the company to

t +1

t +1
Filtering
(Machine
deletion) Content
(incentives, Purchase
links, etc.) Conversion
Permission Yes

NO
Opening Email Paying Attention Click Through

Deletion
(Personal,
SPAM collective, legal
deletion)

Fig. 9.2 The anatomy of email marketing

 9 CONNECTIVITY 161

receive this email. In other words, if the email received fits the standards
of the consent or permission agreement with the company made previ-
ously, the person can continue to open to email to read the content.
The company could collect such permissions from its consumers or
can buy email lists of potentially interested consumers from an email
marketing company. Some of these email lists are tested by the email
marketing company in different campaigns for response robustness as
some consumers might forget that they gave permission or opt out from
the list as they are not interested in the product category anymore. Thus,
reaching an effective and responsive permission-based consumer email list
is a major challenge as the company doesn’t want to be perceived as SPAM
or associated with SPAM (as indicated with red dashed lines in Fig. 9.2).
Hence, the higher the response rate to the email campaign that is not
perceived as SPAM and hence legitimate and genuine, the higher the price
of getting each email address will be in the market.
On the other hand, not every company follows permission-based email
marketing campaigns and takes the risk of being perceived as SPAM.
In those cases, when the consumer receives an email from a company
s/he didn’t give permission previously, the content of the message plays
a significant role after the consumer opens the email. The subject line
of the email, the story, the number of images and links, and the incen-
tives provided in the email all play a significant role in convincing the
consumer to follow the information provided in the email.8 The content
generates some level of attention and perhaps stimulates the consumer to
investigate more and purchase the product which is the prime goal of the
email marketing campaign as also indicated in “Purchase” box in Fig. 9.2.
With the purchase decision, the consumer engages with the company and
converted to be the company’s new consumer. The consumer attention
levels are generally higher than regular consumers at the “Paying Atten-
tion” stage in Fig. 9.2 for the consumers who gave permission to the
company previously. However, the content of the email might not always
fit every consumer’s interest as they are not permission-based commu-
nication and hence the company could easily be classified as SPAM in
the consumer’s mind and treated as such. Some consumers don’t neces-
sarily treat such emails as SPAM and clickthrough the email and move on.
However, this doesn’t mean that the consumer will forgive the company
for its second attempt (indicated with “t + 1” lines in Fig. 9.2). If the
162 S. U. KUCUK

email’s content falls short of grabbing consumers’ attention and eventu-

ally can be classified as SPAM, the message will be deleted the second time
or immediately as also indicated with the “Deletion” box in Fig. 9.2.
There are various sources of deletion decisions even though the
majority of deletion decisions are determined by the message receiver
personally. On the other hand, deletion can be done with the advice of
other friends who received the same email earlier. In other words, some
filtering comes from receivers and/or consumers themselves and/or their
friends/family suggestions (e.g., collective deletion and/or filtering) as
today’s email systems can also filter emails marked as SPAM learning
from other receivers’ deletion decisions. In collective filtering, some of the
emails others received are defined as SPAM and sent to your SPAM filter
because some other users marked this email as SPAM. Email providers
start classifying such emails as SPAM unless you go change the status
of the email to “not SPAM” in your settings. This is a filtering option
that collects information from the consumers similar to the receiver as
the system assumes that you would also classify such email communica-
tion as SPAM and don’t want to see them and filter them accordingly.
Some other filtering also comes from regulative sources as some content
should not be passed the legal requirements of eligibility of the receiver
(e.g., underage sexual content) or any other legal restrictions (e.g., violent
content). Eventually, all these filtering requirements can be listed and
processed in a major computerized filtering system so that consumers can
have highly personalized options and hence have a smooth ride without
any distractions when they are dealing with their emails. This final filtering
system can be defined as “machine filtering” as also indicated in the “Fil-
tering” box in Fig. 9.2. In other words, such various forms of deletion
practices are eventually used to develop a sound filtering system that gives
the consumers the best experience without any distractions.
Either it’s permission-based or not, “paying attention” stage plays a
significant role in determining how the email will be treated. Unwanted or
un-permissioned emails will more likely be treated as SPAM, yet there are
still instances in which consumers might forget whether they gave permis-
sion to the email sender or not and hence go with opening the email with
impulse. At that point, the content of the email will determine the destiny
of the message. For non-permission-based emails, the company can’t
reach success without intriguing and interesting email content if there
is not a match between consumer interest and email content. However,
attention is a scare commodity in today’s digital world. Consumers can
 9 CONNECTIVITY 163

easily go from one destination to another in a split of a second if they

don’t like the content. Furthermore, if the same email message is sent to
the receiver over and over again, you can witness a drop in consumers’
attention to the email similar to advertisement ware off effects discussed
in the Promotion chapter.
So, the problem is not only limited to content quality and attractive-
ness but also how often you need to send the interesting content to
the consumers, or also called the frequency of email sent (e.g., daily or
weekly or monthly sending). Email marketing is used as a synonym for
spam because of the high volume of emails sent during email marketing
campaigns. The consumer might feel bored and tired of ever repeating
content and link the email message with SPAM as pictured in Fig. 9.3. A
simple email can generally carry more information than many other media
tools and in fact more than receivers intended to receive from an email.
Because emails can be rich in content and information they carry, this
also eventually leads to consumer information overload. In other words,
if an email message carries more information than the receiver needs and
processes it, then the consumer’s attention drops significantly, as such
email messages overwhelm the consumer and hence lead to information
overload.9 Thus, anything beyond consumers’ attention threshold will
not be recognized and evaluated by the receiver. This, in turn, reduces
the email campaign’s effectiveness dramatically, and further consumers
start thinking negatively about the email message and hence the email
can be seen as SPAM as also pictured in Fig. 9.3. At that point, your
emails create more dislikes and displeasures over time, this might even
generate more negative WOM about your message and consumers can
easily brush it off as SPAM. In other words, the email campaign can get
into a self-destructive mood generating more dislike and displeasure every
email at a time.
The company should also understand how SPAM filters and how
consumer deletion mentality works before sending emails so that their
emails can be classified rightfully and be distinguished from SPAM. The
filtering systems don’t work perfectly all the time. The quality of filtering
system can also be determined if a permission-based email is classi-
fied as SPAM or not. Consumer’s deletion preferences determine the
filtering system’s effectiveness and accuracy. Such filtering systems can
have some unintended consequences if they are not updated regularly and
programmed right as they can accidentally misidentify permitted and valu-
able emails as SPAM (aka “false positive).10 At that point, your message is
164 S. U. KUCUK

Receiver Attention

Attention threshold

Positive Attention
(Like)

Number of emails
sent

Negative Attention
(Dislike) S P A M

Fig. 9.3 Attention threshold and SPAM

stuck in the SPAM filters waiting to be deleted. Alternatively, the system

could classify SPAM message as a valuable and legitimate message and
keep it in the receiver’s inbox (aka “false negative”)11 even though the
receiver didn’t want to see the SPAM message. In other words, even
though an email had permission of the receiver and in fact wanted and
expected by the receiver, it could be transferred to SPAM folder without
even the receiver’s knowledge, and valuable information was lost. The
purpose of the filtering system is to reduce both the number of false
positive and negative errors.
The email filtering system constantly tries to update SPAM-featured
emails from different sources (e.g., personal, collective, legal filtering
sources). After a while, the system learns how to define SPAM and starts
classifying potential SPAM and deletes it by itself before the receiver knew
it. However, during such detection and learning process, there is a time
difference between when the system detects potentially SPAM featuring
email and finally classifies and deletes it. Because of such delayed detection
and deletion of SPAM emails, valuable email messages would be stored
in the SPAM filter while unnecessary and unwanted email will end up
in the consumer’s email folder. Thus, consumers are exposed to some
SPAM-featured content until the filtering system corrects and perfects
 9 CONNECTIVITY 165

itself. The situation could get worse as the number of email messages
reaches uncontrollable volumes as this eventually creates backlogs in the
receivers’ inboxes. With the increasing information overload during dele-
tion, consumers might delete more regular emails than SPAMs, and hence
the likelihood of false positive incidents can go up unintentionally. At
that point, the company’s emails are classified as SPAM even though
consumers were willing to hear from the company as indicated with the
shaded area in Fig. 9.4.
As pictured in Fig. 9.4, when the information overload reaches max
and plateau then the email can more likely be defined as SPAM by the
receiver as the accidental deleting is more likely. And where the infor-
mation overload intercepts with the rising deletion rate indicates where
accidental deletion starts. Clearly, you don’t want to see your email
message classified as SPAM wither accidentally or purposely. False positive
and negative errors are the major obstacle in updating filtering systems as
it creates unintended consequences for both the company, as an infor-
mation and content producer, and the consumer, as an information and
content receiver.

Volume
Deletion

Info Overload

High likely of
“False-Positive”
incidents

Time/Frequency

Fig. 9.4 Filtering and deletion of SPAM

166 S. U. KUCUK

Determining Factors of Successful Email Marketing

Although email marketing success is depended on various factors, the
major danger in front of email marketing success is to be perceived as
SPAM. SPAM, in this context, was defined “as the practice of indiscrim-
inate distribution of messages without permission of the receiver and
without consideration for the message appropriateness (Turban et al.,
2000: 360) [emphases are added]”. Similarly, the factors that influence
email marketing success are also discussed in three major components in
Fig. 9.1 in this chapter, namely: Permission, Content, and Filtering.

Permission
Companies can create their own lists by asking consumers for their email
addresses and permission to contact them. However, without under-
standing consumer interest an email marketing campaign’s behavioral
targeting will not be successful. Consumer targeting requires deep and
fastidious data mining in broad areas of consumer interests, shopping
histories, geographical locations, demographic configurations, etc. If an
email message, or its content, does not fit the targeted consumer’s interest
and expectations, company emails may be seen as spam. Although email
marketing can be seen as almost costless by companies, it can create very
high psychological costs for consumers and sometimes even destroy the
company’s reputation in the eyes of consumers.
Alternatively, companies can also buy more targeted email address
lists from service companies to communicate with potential consumers.
Service companies collect consumer information and email addresses for
different reasons from different sources and classify their lists according
to consumer interests, location, shopping habits, etc. The price and value
of email lists are generally determined by consumer response rates and
how many sales are generated by such emails, as well as by the level
of consumer permission given (either opt-in or double opt-in). Again,
however, SPAM is a problem—not just consumer misperception and
misinterpretation of company emails but also SPAM filters. Some SPAM
filter algorithms are highly sensitive and increasingly able to filter out any
unwanted email. Thus, companies need to understand the way spam filters
work to be able to access their consumers without being quarantined and
deleted by spam filters.
 9 CONNECTIVITY 167

Content
Email content that generates less information overload and more
consumer attention and engagement is the best content. Email content’s
success is generally related to various factors. For example, the email’s
subject line and sender’s name are one of the first things the
consumers/receiver see when they received the email. Thus, subject line
appropriateness can play a significant role in stimulating consumers to
click the email message and see your content. Consumer’s response rates
would go higher if the email subject line has intriguing and interesting
phrases. For example, I have recently received an email from a tire
company, and the subject line says: “don’t forget the check your battery
before cold weather comes”. The company was not following pushy sell
tactics and in fact, I can think that they are considerate and worried about
my safety. The focus of the title should be the consumer’s welfare not the
product or the company.
Furthermore, the quality and quantity of email content can also
influence consumer engagement with the company’s message. Research
revealed that the quality of images and availability of links are related
to consumer’s response intention to the email campaign.12 However, low
costs of developing rich email content messages and processing can stimu-
late companies to send very rich and crowded content,13 which eventually
increases consumer information overload and attention drain. This, in
turn, increases the likelihood of the perception of the company’s email as
SPAM. Thus, the company should find the right balance between quantity
and quality of content when they are drafting their email messages.
Lastly, the frequency, and how often the email message is periodically
distributed to the receiver, can also determine whether consumers classify
an email as spam or not. The company should figure out how often and
when consumers want to receive the company’s emails in order to prevent
to be seen as SPAM. In other words, the company should comply with
the consumers’ frequency request. If the company doesn’t comply with
the frequency of messaging that consumers feel comfortable with, the
company is on the path to being perceived as SPAM even though the
company got consumer permissions initially. Research showed that the
majority of consumers want to receive the company’s promotional emails
at least monthly and some cases weekly.14 Such frequency of email distri-
bution could also be depended on the nature of the product and service.
For example, you probably don’t mind receiving promotional deals from
168 S. U. KUCUK

a ticket company that sells your favorite football team’s tickets every
day. Thus, the company should test various frequency options with their
consumers and find out which frequency of messaging best fit their needs.
This, in turn, increases the total revenue and drops email subscription
rates.

Filtering
The companies need to understand SPAM filter algorithms in order
to prevent being trapped by consumers’ SPAM filters. Specifically, the
company needs to know the deletion and filtering systems to deter-
mine the effectiveness and efficiency of its email marketing campaign. As
indicated in Fig. 8.2, at the beginning consumer either develop their pref-
erences by going through emails they received and classify the emails they
don’t like to receive because of unmatching interests, or they receive the
same email constantly even though they had little interest, but they get
tired of frequently receiving the content. If they don’t want to receive
anymore, they will either delete it from their inbox or don’t even read it
next time. This is also learned by the system as many email systems give
you the option to define an email as SPAM and can automatically tag
the email as SPAM and send it to the SPAM filter. Thus, the deletion that
started as personal deletion can turn into systematic and automatic at later
stages. The worst scenario is not only perceived as SPAM but also hated
as SPAM which triggers negative WOM and negative publicity toward the
company and its brands. Thus, the company should find a way to differ-
entiate its message from other SPAM-smelling emails within general email
filtering systems to be recognized positively.

Findability
Many consumers start their shopping process by searching for what they
need in the markets with the help of external or internal information
sources. Either they can remember or guess the brand’s domain name and
directly use their browsers to access the brand’s website. All the marketing
efforts to establish such a domain name in consumer’s mind requires
effective and intense branding effort. That’s defined as “domain name
branding”. The action starts with consumers, and they use the brand
name or simply the brand’s digital address to get connected with the
brand and the company to satisfy their needs. This, in turn, is the first
findability element.
 9 CONNECTIVITY 169

Similarly, if consumers are not sure about the domain name, or they
don’t care about a specific brand name per se, they can simply use a search
engine to find the related brands and other alternative information in
the markets. Search engines do the job for consumers and provide the
best options based on the keywords you used in your search so that you
can connect with such a brand or product. The differences between the
consumer’s effort to find the products/brands make companies to invest
in their marketing dollars to various findability elements I will discuss in
this chapter.

Domain Name Branding

Research showed that about 40% of traffic companies receive through
direct consumer domain name typing or copying/pasting a domain name
from different sources.15 The domain name is the key that opens the door
to company’s website. Domain names are embedded into URL (Uniform
Resource Locator) which is a standard protocol we use to connect with
any websites on the Internet as also pictured in Fig. 9.5 as follows.
In any URL, protocol and subdomain are pretty standard and don’t
change while domain name and top-level domain (e.g., com, edu, gov,
org, net), which is an institutional or business identification of the
domain, can change. In other words, a domain name that could include
top-level domain is the highest level of identification of a company and

Domain Name
Where your ‘brand name’
URL meets with the Internet

https://www.umit.com

Protocol Subdomain Top Level

Domain

Fig. 9.5 Function of domain name

170 S. U. KUCUK

brand in the digital world. Thus, the domain name of the company gener-
ally functions like a brand name in cyberspace. Similarly, the majority of
consumers tend to see a company’s name and/or brand name as an equiv-
alent of domain name in the digital world. Consumers can directly type
the domain name in a browser to connect with the company’s website
features products and services. In other words, domain names work like a
bridge between company’s physical and digital world operations. Without
well-branded domain name, the link between consumers and companies
would be broken and consumers cannot reach the company for the prod-
ucts and services. Thus, branding of a specific domain name is at the
heart of consumer–company connectivity and long-lasting relationship.
In this context, some domain names are better branded than others,
and hence have easier connectivity options with consumers than others.
Because the domain names are highly associated with the company as the
company uses its brand name as a domain name, these names require legal
protections against any brand infringement attempts in the digital world.
In this context, the most effective tool for creating effective website
branding is choosing the right domain name that can open the doors
to consumers of the company’s digital operations. Although some
consumers type the specific domain names in their browsers knowing
what they are looking for beforehand, some others prefer searching a
specific product/service category or brand name on the search engines to
connect with the company. Research showed that the majority of known
and valuable brands pick the domain names that carry their brand name in
them, so that the consumers can easily connect with them.16 Thus, there
are few factors influence picking the right domain name for a company
for a better consumer–company connectivity as follows: “relevance” and
“memorability” of the domain name.

Domain Name Relevance

It plays a significant role in the consumer journey in the digital platforms.
A potential mismatch between the company’s brand and domain names
might create confusion for consumers and this, in turn, makes consumer
connectivity to the company in the digital form difficult. The majority of
consumers looks for some similarities between brand name and domain
name. Companies generally register their own brand name as well as
their brand associations as a domain name (e.g., Ford’s ford.com) so
that consumers can easily associate their websites with their real brand
name. This reduces consumer’s search time since the brand name is
 9 CONNECTIVITY 171

already readily available in consumers’ memory.17 Furthermore, a relevant

domain name can also complement and reinforce the brand’s identity in
the digital world18 when the domain name carries the brand name. Such
domain names are also protected by a law similar to their brand name as
consumers can easily use brand associations when they need to guess the
company’s digital destination. In short, a domain name that can carry a
brand name, meanings, be self-descriptive, and provides clues about the
company’s products, values, and identity can have high connectivity with
consumers than other domain names. This, in turn, generates a high-level
of traffic to the company’s website.19
However, this could not be the case for the brand was born in digital
platforms or dot.coms as they don’t have a prior brand name and identity
before the digital world. Domain names of known brands have already
been investing in traditional advertising and marketing to build brand
awareness and equity long before the internet revolution. But that was not
the case for these newly born brands in the digital world. Because such
domain names (e.g., Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, etc.) were newly born
and have no previous offline branding presence, their success predomi-
nantly depended on the convenience, empowerment, usefulness, and in
fact innovativeness they provide to the consumers and markets. Thus,
consumers associate these domain names as brand names based on the
value they provided for consumers. Although such domain names don’t
use too many traditional marketing functions, they highly benefited from
consumer WOM to build domain name and brand awareness. Many of
these domain names are made-up names yet the change they brought
to consumption markets are so innovative and deep that now we, as
consumers and citizens, use such brand names with the function and
change they brought to our daily dictionary, hence lives (e.g., “hey why
don’t you Gmail me that?). As a result, the brand relevance of such new
domain names comes solely from the function and value they provide for
consumers rather than advertisement and marketing efforts like known
traditional brands.

Memorability
Similarly, memorability indicates how easily consumers remember and
spell the corporate domain names in a browser, so that they can easily
connect with the company without any interruptions and problems. In
this context, the shorter domain name has advantages over long domain
names as it is easier to recall and spell short names without any typing
172 S. U. KUCUK

errors in a browser.20 In other words, the longer the domain name,

the easier for consumers to make typographical errors (aka typosquat-
ting which is also called URL hijacking) and fall into cyber-squatters’
prey, which transfers consumers in the wrong and unwanted destinations
on the Internet21 (cybersquatting means domain name and trademark
infringement). This, in turn, increases consumer frustration and dissatis-
faction as consumers might get lost in the wrong destinations without
accomplishing anything or in fact struggle with an unrelated and unnec-
essary sale pitch. Thus, many companies are advised to buy derivatives
of their brand and domain names so that they can link all the alterna-
tive domain names into the same branded website such as Yahoo can
but the domain name of yooha.com and link this domain to its own
main Yahoo.com. Although the company owns more than one specific
domain name, this eventually eliminates the unwanted experiences caused
by consumers’ typographical errors (e.g., Yahoo’s yooha.com) causing
a user to end up visiting a different website from the one intended.
Furthermore, some companies use the most frequently used keywords
in their domain names since they are known by almost everybody. Such
commonly used keywords and/or generic names can easily be remem-
bered as the users already have some previous knowledge about the
name. For example, “sex.com” was sold $103 million as this three-letter
word defines a very well-known category by many and hence is easy to
remember as it is commonly and frequently used in the society.22 Such
words can generate natural traffic without the help of search engines and
portal sites23 as consumers can directly put these words in a browser
without wasting time and energy on other platforms to connect with the
website. This, in turn, makes this word more valuable since it’s an easily
remembered and widely known name, and hence doesn’t need any other
digital platform’s help to connect with the company.
The success of a company’s website branding depends not simply on
picking the right domain name, but also on predicting possible cyber-
squatting and typosquatting alternatives in order to protect the website’s
identity and reduce possible legal problems in the future, and, most
importantly, to lead consumers straight to the intended Internet destina-
tions.24 Companies should find domain names that speak directly to their
consumers and hence not require them to guess their domain names. This
will also increase the domain name values and make its digital destinations
easily detected by search engines for higher consumer traffic.
 9 CONNECTIVITY 173

Search Engine Marketing

Research showed that 81% of the consumers start their shopping journey
by searching online products and services in search engines (such as
Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.).25 This simple statistic emphasizes the impor-
tance of search engine marketing (SEM) activities in today’s digital world.
Search engines are one of the major external sources through which
consumers find what they need on the Internet. Thus, search engines can
play an active role in consumers “need recognition” and mostly in the
“information search” stages. In SEM, the action starts on the consumer
side, unlike email marketing, where the action orientation is from the
company side, and hence SEM can be classified as one of the major
findability components with domain name marketing.
In a simple search process, consumers start by typing one or two
keywords that describe what consumers are needing to find in the
search engine’s search bar. The search engine uses this keyword and
starts searching for the best information about products or services that
matches with the consumer’s request among the millions of websites
within seconds on the Internet. Similar to what I have discussed in the
typosquatting of domain names, consumers can also accidently misspell
the keywords in the search bar and end up with wrong links which
increase consumers’ frustration and dissatisfaction with the search engine.
In these situations, many search engines have also provided auto-word
correction options so that consumers can see their misspelling and don’t
end up searching the unintended words which leads them wrong desti-
nations. Thus, the power of search engines come from their ability to
search all the requested keywords for consumers literally among billions
of websites and provide the best matching websites with consumer’s
keywords, which reflects needed information or product and services. At
the end of this searching and matching process, search engines provide a
list of links from best matching links to worst matching links respectively
so that consumers can visit these websites with one-click to find what
they are needing. In this context, every company in the product category
wants to be listed at the top of these lists so that they can be picked and
visited by the consumer as the consumer’s attention fades away after the
consumer tests some of these links to reach the wanted destinations. In
other words, if your company’s link, which reveals itself with the compa-
ny’s domain name as well, is listed at the top of search engine results,
the company’s websites can most likely be visited by the consumer as
174 S. U. KUCUK

some research showed that consumers don’t go beyond more than three
pages (thirty search results) in the search engine results.26 As also it can
be observed that there is a sharp decline in clicks on the links listed in
the search engine results as the highest clickthrough reaches the top in
the 1st link and goes down all the way to the link listed in the 20th.
Interestingly enough, the figure also shows that “branded search”, which
indicates inclusion of the brand name of a company in a search, receives
higher clickthroughs than “non-branded search”, which doesn’t include
a brand name in a search. This, in turn, one more time emphasized the
importance of branding and branded search in today’s digital economy.
Thus, the company should continue to use traditional and physical world
advertisement tactics that were discussed in the previous sections to build
an awareness of its website and encourage its consumers to use its brand
name in a search for better results.
Furthermore, if the company’s link is listed at the top of search engine
results, then the company’s website visibility reaches higher levels.27 High
visibility of a website means increased consumer traffic to the compa-
ny’s website, and hence more exposure to the company’s products and
services which plays a significant role in consumer engagement28 and
can also turn into purchase decisions of those products and services.29
These, in turn, impact the company’s revenue models30 as well as prof-
itability.31 Thus, consumers’ keyword-based searches and website visibility
along with brand awareness determine the success of the search engine
marketing efforts.32 The company needs to know which keywords are
used by consumers when they need the company’s products/services and
find a way to increase their increase the visibility of their website in the
digital world. Furthermore, the company needs to understand the search
engine algorithms as such algorithms will open the door to the company’s
website. Search engines use complex algorithms that can be influenced by
various factors to rank the available websites in a list that best fits the
consumer’s keyword search.
Search engine algorithms take into account various factors in their
calculations. Some common criteria that determine which website can
be linked at the top of search results are by calculating the frequency of
keywords on the website visited by the search engine crawls. The assump-
tion is if a keyword is frequently used in a website, that website is highly
likely to have something to offer to consumers who used this keyword
in his/her search. Search engines also check if such keywords are used
in the title of the website and/or if the company’s website also uses a
 9 CONNECTIVITY 175

metatag which emphasizes the content of the website. Metatags are the
information section at the head of the website that can be viewed by
browsers or search crawls. Thus, the metatag is the first information that
gives a brief about the content of the website, and hence the keyword
used in this heading should be defining the product category, products,
services, and more. When search engines crawl millions of websites on
the internet, they first look at the keywords that are used in the head of
the website to make determination of how well match the website with
consumers’ keyword. And, hence there is a major difference between how
we, as human beings, and search engines view a website as also pictured
in Table 9.1.
We, as consumers or users, mostly see the visual content and some
textual content while search engines are mostly depended on textual
information provided on the website and in fact mostly behind the
website. While digital advertising tools such as banner ads or promo-
tional content with visual representations on the company website which
basically implements traditional marketing and advertising perspectives
are more targeted to consumers’ eyes. Thus, content marketing can play
a very significant role while textual content and findability, behind the
scenes, play a significant role in directing consumers toward the right
destinations for the best experiences as also explained in Table 8.1. Search
engines make a decision based on matching words with the user’s request,
search engines cannot fill the gaps between the found keywords or words,
thus meaning could be lost in translation. Recently, semantic search
engines, which not only focus on matching words or keywords but also
the contextual meaning of the words and what the website is trying to say
as a whole and list the best matching search results for consumers. Thus,
semantic search focuses on the wider context and potential relationship
between words rather than just solely focusing on the words that match
the users’ request. In other words, semantic search produces more mean-
ingful results for the users even though the search engines cannot fully
see, embrace, and understand the visual content presented in the digital
world. Yet, the efforts to develop search algorithms that can also catch
pictures that might match users’ inquiry is still alive. Such weaknesses
presented by search engines can be closed with digital advertising tools,
and hence findability should always be supported with addressability.
Another criterion used by search engines is the link popularity of the
website. If a website is visited all the time, it means that the website
has high visibility and hence does good job of providing information or
 176

Table 9.1 How do search engine and human view websites differently?
S. U. KUCUK

How human eye sees the website

https://www.microsoft.com
Visual content Microsoft365 Office Windows Surface
[Page1] [Page2] [Page3] [Page4]
Addressability—Digital
advertising

How search engine’s crawls see the website

https://www.microsoft.com
Textual content Meta tag: “Explore Microsoft products and services for your home or business. Shop Surface, Microsoft
365, Xbox, Windows, Azure, and more. Find downloads and get support ”
Findability—SEO Microsoft365 Office Windows Surface
[Page1] [Page2] [Page3] [Page4]
 9 CONNECTIVITY 177

services to the consumers (Website-A in Fig. 9.6). In other words, a

website’s popularity is determined by how many websites are linked to
the website and/or how many times the website was visited by others.
One way to look at this is to see if everybody requests a link from a
website that receives high traffic so that the website that linked to the
popular website can also be benefited from the popular website’s traffic
as also pictured in the left-hand side (High Link Popularity) of Fig. 9.6.
Similarly, a website that asks to be linked to the other popular websites
has a low link popularity (as indicated with Website-B in the figure) as it
is trying to be linked to all the other websites to increase its website visi-
bility as also pictured in the right-hand side of Fig. 9.6. Simply put, these
websites are not as demanded as the popular ones, so they are imploring
attention from the popular sites.
Furthermore, some search engines also look at how often the website is
updated to find the most recent information and product/services for the
consumers. By evaluating all these criteria, search engine algorithms deter-
mine the most appropriate or most matching website to their list. Many
companies try to make technological changes to their company websites

High Link Popularity Low Link Popularity

Website-1
Website-1

Website-2 Website-2

Website-A Website-B

Website-3 Website-3

Website-4
Website-4

Fig. 9.6 Link popularity

178 S. U. KUCUK

to be listed in the most appropriate range of websites that may match the
consumer’s search needs. This is also called “organic search or “organic
SEM”. On the other hand, a company can pay a search engine to be listed
at the top of the search results by bypassing all the search engine algo-
rithms. This is called “paid search” or “paid SEM”. Paid search, in this
context, can be considered as a “paid advertising” or “paid placement” as
the company pays to the search engine for high website visibility in the
market. Paid SEM is a shortcut and a faster way to gain website visibility
in search results.33 On the other hand, organic SEM could be seen as
more trustworthy than paid SEM34 since the link is paid to be there not
fairly struggling through search lists to be rated at the top. Furthermore, a
company can bid on keywords that are highly related and defines its busi-
ness used by the consumers in pay-per-click or pay-per-click per thousand
impression formats. Some others also pay subscription fees to the search
engines to be included in the search results. Thus, revenue models for
search engines paid format can vary.
The goal is to be listed at the top of the search engine results through
either organic or paid SEM. However, the effectiveness and productivity
of using organic vs paid SEM are still a debate. In other words, should
companies use organic or paid SEM for better results? Or alternatively
both? Recent statistics indicate that organic SEM is ahead of paid SEM35
yet the difference was higher for organic SEM a decade ago.36 Thus,
an argument could be discussed here whether the company wants to be
recognized in a short time frame or want to be perceived as trustworthy
by consumers. The company either goes solely with organic SEM or paid
SEM or both to maximize its website visibility in the digital world as
pictured in Fig. 9.7.
In the beginning, when all things have been equal, if the company
doesn’t use any SEM techniques, it will gradually lose its website visibility
and hence findability as its visibility solely depended on website domain
name branding efforts through traditional marketing tools. This is true,
especially for unknown brands to consumers. If the brand is known, such
“No SEM” line could also show resistance and stay in stable yet still in
lower levels. Over time, more and more companies started to use SEM
techniques, the company doesn’t use any of SEM will eventually lose its
visibility advantage to the others who successfully implement SEM tech-
niques. Thus, companies who use organic SEM and paid SEM will be
better off, but it seems organic SEM has still an advantage over paid
SEM because of the consumer trust issues. However, if the company also
 9 CONNECTIVITY 179

Visibility

Organic + Paid
SEM

Organic SEM

No SEM

Time

Fig. 9.7 Website visibility with different SEM techniques

wants to implement paid SEM which increases website visibility more, the
graph of website visibility would show a sharp exponential increase as paid
SEM to increase visibility faster than organic SEM. Clearly, the company
needs to find the right combination of SEM techniques that can also have
synergy effects in company’s website visibility in the digital world.
Although organic SEM can be seen as a more trusted medium by the
consumers, organic SEM has some vulnerabilities and hence the website
visibility would not increase as sharply as seen in Fig. 9.7. Although many
websites use the rules and guidelines appropriately to optimize their rank-
ings by applying these organic SEM techniques, some other sites might
break some of these algorithmic rules and abuse the SEM process, using
shortcut techniques (e.g., keyword stuffing, link hijacking, link farming,
etc.) in order to be unfairly noticed.37 Such methods (termed “black-
hat SEM”) can negatively impact the ranking of the websites that have
fairly earned their rankings in the search engine results as well as the
company’s business.38 Because of such black-hate SEM, consumers can
end up in wrong destinations different from them than they intended
to, and perhaps end up in scammers’ unethical business practices. Thus,
such black-hate SEM techniques are deemed illegal and unethical and
search engines try to weed out such unfair competitors from their own
systems so that consumers can reach clean and relevant content when they
need it.
180 S. U. KUCUK

Overall, companies need to study and understand the basics of search

engine algorithms to achieve higher website visibility which can be
measured through clickthrough rates and consumer TOMA of the first
results. The majority of search engine algorithms uses keyword and link
popularity measures when they rank their results for consumers. Thus,
companies need to pick the right keywords, ones that define them and
their business well and can be found easily in organic SEO results.
Furthermore, companies should watch out for possible black-hat SEO
methods and study the differences between search engine policies so that
they can also detect and report black-hatters easily. This, in turn, helps
companies to protect their consumers from websites using techniques to
artificially boost search engine rankings and have different agendas than
the companies themselves. Although paid SEM can also help companies
to boost their visibility, the use of both organic and paid SEM techniques
can be advised especially in intensive campaigning times such as new
product introduction or aggressive competition. Finally, although SEM
techniques can boost companies’ website visibility and brand awareness
in digital markets, strong synergy effects can be achieved if SEM, either
organic or paid, is supported by email marketing campaigns. In other
words, addressability and findability should work together to optimize
brand message, awareness, and equity on the Internet.39

Conclusion
Without connectivity, a company would not exist in the digital markets.
The first step to operationalize any business idea is to get connected
with consumers and hence reach the markets. That’s a basic function of
connectivity in the digital world. There are a couple of ways to reach effec-
tive connectivity in the digital world, as discussed in this chapter. One
way, companies can go find their consumers or make them to find the
company. These are conceptualized as “addressability” and “findability”
in this chapter.
In order to reach high addressability, companies need to find domain
names that describe themselves best and speak directly to their consumers.
If a company makes its consumers guess its domain name will eventually
not connect with their consumers in a timely manner in today’s digitally
challenging environments. Furthermore, companies need to search for
potential alternatives of their domain names and purchase such domain
 9 CONNECTIVITY 181

names to prevent cybersquatting and typosquatting problems before-

hand.40 Even today’s consumers who interact with their followers daily
in the social networking environments need to create the best names
that represents themselves. Another addressability tool is email marketing
campaigns used by companies. The biggest danger in front of such email
marketing campaigns is SPAM. Any business communication without
consumer permission is not only tolerated in the digital world but perhaps
also punished by consumers as they will be treated as a spammer and
stuck in email spam filters rest of their lives. Thus, companies also need
to understand spam filter algorithms and respect consumer privacy for
fruitful connectivity results.
Similarly, companies can boost their findability by studying search engi-
nes’ algorithms and hence implementing search engine marketing tools.
As discussed in domain name selection, companies need to pick the right
keywords that can define the company, its products/services, as well
brand images just able to be found easily by SEO crawls. Every search
engine has a different policy and hence companies need to learn such
policies in order to not be classified as black-hatter or distributor.41 Other-
wise, companies can be singled out and not listed by search engines. Any
website design and digital marketing operations should take into account
both paid and organic SEO practices in mind and stay away from potential
black-hat SEO methods.
For higher connectivity results, both addressability and findability
should be implemented together. Addressability covers the areas where
SEM is weak and vice versa. Although SEM techniques can increase
brand awareness and findability of the company’s products/services in
digital markets, strong synergy effects can only be reached if SEM can
also be supported with the right domain name branding efforts and email
marketing campaigns. Further, some addressability features such as email
content and/or similar digital advertising tools embedded in websites can
complement search engine’s weakness which is caused by only focusing
on keyword matching rather than semantic and/or pictorial search. As a
result, if a company or message sender only uses SEO or email marketing
or domain name marketing, it will only cover the smaller subsections
of bigger markets in which many competitors are fighting for a few
seconds of consumer attention in today’s digital world. In this context,
the highest connectivity results could only be possible integrated use of
both addressability and findability tools in a coordinated way.
182 S. U. KUCUK

Notes
1. Kucuk (2011).
2. Sen (2005).
3. Jones (1990), Agrawal (1996).
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-E-mail-users-
worldwide/.
5. https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/how-
many-people-in-the-world-use-email/.
6. https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/how-customers-want-
promo-emails.
7. https://www.statista.com/chart/18236/small-business-marketing-tac
tics/.
8. Chittenden and Rettie (2003).
9. Schwartz (2004), Pavlov et al. (2008).
10. Pavlov et al. (2008).
11. Pavlov et al. (2008).
12. Chittenden and Rettie (2003).
13. Chittenden and Rettie (2003), Pavlov et al. (2008).
14. https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/how-customers-want-
promo-emails.
15. https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-analytics/imp
ortant-E-commerce-traffic-sources/.
16. Murphy et al. (2003).
17. Degeratu et al. (2000).
18. Murphy et al. (2003).
19. Muzellec (2006), Kucuk (2011).
20. Thang et al. (2014).
21. Ries et al. (2000), Kucuk (2008).
22. Muzellec (2006).
23. Thang et al. (2014).
24. Kucuk (2011).
25. https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-marketing/search-engine-
statistics/.
26. Sen (2005).
27. Dou et al. (2010).
28. Olbrich and Schultz 2014).
29. Kucuk (2011).
30. Keane et al. (2008), Skiera et al. (2010).
31. Abou Nabout (2015).
32. Aswani et al. (2018).
33. Sen (2005).
34. Sen (2005).
 9 CONNECTIVITY 183

35. https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-marketing/search-engine-
statistics/.
36. Sen (2005).
37. Kucuk (2009).
38. Aswani et al. (2018).
39. Kucuk (2011).
40. Kucuk (2011).
41. Kucuk (2011).

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 CHAPTER 10

Content

Content or digital content is simply conceptualized as “bit-based objects

distributed through electronic channels1 ” such as information you get
through websites, blogs, online newspapers, videos, etc. Content devel-
opment idea is initially associated with providing information to a user,
a receiver, or a consumer. Thus, content could be treated like tradi-
tional advertising (such as print magazines, digital newsletters, etc.) but
the primary goal of content might not only inform the consumers
but also motivate consumers to buy the company’s or initiators prod-
ucts/services/ ideas. The value not only lies in the products/services
anymore but, mostly, in the consumers’ interaction with the content
where product/service information is introduced in the web. Thus,
content could also be associated with personal selling especially if the
content integrates live chats and video conferencing options with the
buyer. In other words, the traditional salesman mentality is death2 now,
and it also is replaced with new content management tools. In this respect,
it could be fair to relate “content” as a digital marketing mix element with
traditional “promotion” marketing mix elements as both share similar
perspectives in slight ways.
As consumers interact with companies and fellow consumers in greater
numbers of touch points with a greater number of different types of
content, consumer’s attention is descending and is becoming the most
looked-after commodity in today’s digital markets. As the consumers’

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 185

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_10
186 S. U. KUCUK

attention span reduces every day as consumers are overwhelmed by the

amount of content they receive in the digital platforms, now relevant,
entertaining, engaging content features are started to gain more impor-
tance. If a company’s content receives a high remark and is likeable by
others, content could get viral easily and reach the masses, which, in
turn, enhances the company’s brand awareness and patronage. In today’s
digital world, consumers are also acting like major content creators and
competing with companies for consumer attention (aka user-generated
content). Because of anonymity of some digital communication tools,
consumers can easily express their true identities and enhance their self-
fulfillment needs free from media filtering systems. In other words, it
would be fair to say that consumer content gains more attention than
some of the company-generated content as consumers feel that company-
created content was predominantly developed with a business mentality
in mind rather than providing warm social interaction, entertaining,
and likeable digital experience. In this respect, companies are on hunt
for finding which kind of consumer-generated content receives more
attention and traffic to shape their own content strategies as well.
Content management is indispensable as consumer attention slowly
fades away in each content exposure. Thus, companies keep their
followers by providing their favorite content in each contact, which even-
tually brought programmability3 and algorithm planning into marketing
content planning to create a personalized experience to the consumers.
This, in fact, built the fundamentals of today’s attention economy
based on consumer likeability. Further, this development created a new
marketing understanding as it will be defined in this section as “Content
Marketing”.

Content Marketing and Likeability

The most comprehensive “content marketing” definition comes from
Content Marketing Institute as follows:

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating

and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and
retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable
customer action.4
 10 CONTENT 187

As we can see from this definition that the primary goal is to deliver
valuable content, most of the time for free, to gain consumer atten-
tion and hope that consumers eventually see and appreciate the value
you provide in your content and act accordingly for a future business
relationship with the content creator or the website. Thus, the primary
goal of most of the content is to communicate with consumers initially
without the prospect of selling products/services. Selling, in this context,
is a secondary goal while content “likeability” plays a primary role.
Content should pull consumers into the business domain to educate
them while entertaining them about the company, products, and poten-
tial solutions about anything related to products/services provided. In
other words, individuals do not necessarily feel that products/services are
marketed in content marketing while the content can lead them even-
tually to a purchase decision. This, in turn, is argued that content sells
without selling5 or content marketing goes beyond the traditional sales
pitches.6 Similarly, some pure online companies built their whole busi-
ness model in a consumer-friendly algorithm and website content design.
For example, rightfully discussed by Tom Goodwin (2015) that many of
these companies develop content that synchronizes society’s unused assets
with consumer demand as follows:

Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook,

the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the
most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest
accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is
happening.7

Without well-administrative content management, none of these assets

would be benefited from consumers. This, itself, indicates the power of
right content creating a mediator role between supply and demand.
Furthermore, most of the digital companies designed to generate
educative and entertaining content for their followers generate more
revenue by featuring content through their digital platforms rather than
selling products/services directly. In this context, research also revealed
that 90% of today’s marketers think that informational content is more
effective than selling-oriented content and message.8 Thus, one of the
main goals of content marketing is to educate consumers about prod-
ucts/services, as about 80% of marketers believe that content marketing is
an effective tool to educating their consumers.9 As all educators know that
188 S. U. KUCUK

a successful information transfer through education requires entertaining

and engaging content. This is true for content consumption in markets.
Effective and engaging content also sits at the heart of the content
marketing as authentic, emotional, and entertaining stories enhance the
consumers’ learning experience as well as the content’s effectiveness.10
Consequently, it can be said that the major goal of content marketing
activities is to create compelling, engaging, entertaining, and informa-
tive experiences during consumer’s visits to the company’s or the host’s
website and/or any digital platforms to shape consumer attitudes and
behaviors about products/services in order to influence the consumer
landscape. Thus, when it is done well, the content creator, either a
consumer or a corporation, can have the potential to be seen as a thought
leader, change agent, and/or expert in markets.11
Although companies can successfully bring potential consumers to
their websites by utilizing connectivity features, not many websites turn
a consumer visit into a memorable or unforgettable experience. This can
only be done through a web content that gives the user the best expe-
rience as also pictured in Fig. 10.1. In other words, connectivity brings
the right consumers to the right content where consumer experiences and
benefits can be maximized.
Content provides all the necessary information, even it means freeing
trade secrets from corporations, with consumers to encourage dynamic
exchanges of innovative ideas in marketplaces, which in turn enhances
corporate enlightenment12 and consumer empowerment13 as well as
consumer welfare. In this context, many companies are not working with
their own publishing companies as well by developing the right content

C
O
N
CONNECTIVITY T COMMUNITY Commitment
E
N
T

Fig. 10.1 The role of content in 4Cs

 10 CONTENT 189

for their consumers. In this context, it can be claimed that website content
is the first real exposure of the company’s products, brand, or services,
and thus it is also a representation of the company’s business philosophy
in the digital world. It functions like a shelfspaces in retail stores or some-
times informative and entertaining TV advertisements. Thus, clarity and
attractiveness of the website design and interface will play a crucial role
in overall e-marketing and e-branding success in digital markets. Well-
crafted website content that meets consumer needs helps companies to
reduce possible consumer perceptional biases and perceived risks.14 In
this context, the depth of information provided on the website can also
increase consumer’s overall satisfaction and loyalty to the website and
hence the company.15 These all, in turn, ultimately improve the compa-
ny’s website branding. Furthermore, if also the company uses frequently
used keywords in the website content as well as regular updating of
content, this will eventually strengthen the company’s findability in
the digital markets.16 Similarly, email content used in email marketing
campaigns eventually determines the value provided in such communica-
tions. The content embedded in email messages would eventually increase
the likelihood of receivers’ intent to respond to email marketing and
hence open a dialogue with the company.
One of the major allies companies can use to create and dissemi-
nate their content is to companies’ own social media channels. Research
revealed that the content created in social networks or the company’s
own community can positively influence consumer–brand relationship.17
Similarly, consumers, now, also started to develop their own content in
various online communities and social networking sites. Interestingly, only
1 percent of social media influencers/consumers might start a thread or
discussion within a group and only 10% can actively involve in a discus-
sion by responding to and share their own ideas and concerns as well,
but 100 percent can eventually be benefited from all these ideas inter-
changes within a population18 (aka “1/10/100” rule19 ). Consumers’
own content development efforts can now go beyond company-created
content, which is developed by the marketers, in terms of content,
quality, trustworthiness, and entertainment value. This is called “con-
sumer content” or “user-generated content” (UGC) in the literature.20
Thus, the content, as a part of 4Cs, covers some of the online commu-
nity activities as such activities can be treated as major content resources
in the digital markets for both consumers and companies as also pictured
with the inner circle in Fig. 10.1. Consumers, especially individuals, have
190 S. U. KUCUK

some expertise in the matter can also generate their own content in the
blogs independent from online communities and company platforms or
website/s. Furthermore, consumers’ content can be found more trust-
worthy than company-generated content, and hence, consumer-generated
content can be found credible,21 which is also another important compo-
nent of commitment, as part of 4Cs. Yet, the recent fake news and illegit-
imate news sharing put content development in jeopardy, yet still impact
credibility of market information in consumer landscape as also pictured
with another inner circle within the community circle in Fig. 10.1.
Nonetheless, it could be right to say that content plays a very effective
role and can be linked to all the other digital Cs as conceptualized in this
book.
Although some companies sell products/services with the help of user
friendly and helpful content on their websites (e.g., Amazon), some
others build their business models solely on content marketing (e.g.,
Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.). If you look at mixed-model busi-
ness practices that uses digital content to support their physical and
traditional business operations, you see that content development is
not necessarily the primary goal. However, purely content-orientated
companies, such as YouTube or LinkedIn, need to develop content
constantly to keep consumers’ and followers’ attention and interest at
a higher level. Content, in these kinds of businesses, does not work
like a supportive function of selling products/services but the primary
and fundamental function, which is generating and encouraging the
consumption of content, of the company. Thus, we can discuss content
for businesses in twofold: “purely content business” and “mix-content
business” models. Although purely content businesses generate revenue
through various digital advertisement tactics, mix-content businesses can
also generate revenue not only by selling products/services but also
through advertisements.
It is also essential to emphasize that both B2C and B2B can benefit
from content marketing in different ways. Because product informa-
tion and expertise are much more important in B2B markets, content
marketing can play a paramount role in B2B markets. Furthermore, in
B2B markets where high-involvement products are dominant, consumer
can value informative and entertaining brand content which in turn
contribute the development of brand loyalty while consumers in B2C in
which low-involvement products are dominant content marketing that
focuses on entertaining content as well as functionality features help
 10 CONTENT 191

the company to increase consumer–brand loyalty.22 In short, informative

content plays a significant role in B2B markets while entertaining and
captivating content can be influential in B2C markets.23
Companies need to be mindful when they are developing the right
content and story for the right consumers through the right content
medium so that they can maximize their appeal and impact in markets.24
One of the major goals of the content marketing is to develop a constant
brand–consumers conversation and establish a relationship. Thus, every
brand in the digital world needs to develop intellectual interest and brand
purpose as only representing soulless product/service pictures or infor-
mation is not enough anymore. It is necessary that a company should
align its content and content marketing efforts with its brand iden-
tity, values, and strategies25 as different types of content could lead
to changes in consumer–brand attitudes26 and brand loyalty, especially
in B2B markets.27 All these starts with increasing brand awareness by
attracting new audiences and leads. In this context, a recent survey found
that the majority of marketers (%86) believe that content marketing is
a good tool for generating brand awareness.28 Further, the same survey
indicated that content marketing is very efficient in terms of generating
and nurturing consumer leads as it is believed that content marketing is
not only 60% less costly than traditional marketing tools but also it can
usher a company to three times more leads and traffic. From this point,
studies indicated that although pay-per-click (PPC), a measure of “paid
search” in search engine marketing which uses common keywords that
generate traffic, can generally generate almost similar results or similar
return on your investment (ROI) most of the time, content marketing
efforts generally generate better ROI in the long run as also pictured in
Fig. 10.2.
If the company drops the PPC campaign, the results would be felt
immediately as there would be a sudden drop in ROI. Thus, PPC-
based campaigns have short-term impacts on ROI while that is not the
case for content marketing as it takes a long time to develop content
that fits consumers’ needs. In other words, content marketing efforts’
impact on ROI can be seen in the long run. Since content marketing
can generate good quality leads that lead the company to regular content
visitors and consumers. This, in turn, generates long-term revenue and
hence high ROI for the company in the long run.29 In paid search
engine marketing, the company basically buys keywords to find the related
consumers, but in content marketing, the company works like its own
192 S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 10.2 ROI comparison of PPC and content marketing (Source https://ale
canmarketing.com/blog/content-marketing-crushes-ppc-over-time/, visited on
November 17, 2021)

publishing company, and hence the company doesn’t need to pay the
media company at the time. Thus, consumers can frequently visit compa-
nies’ websites to benefit from the content, which is one of the major
reasons that content marketing’s ability to generate brand loyalty, then
going search engines to search potentially related information and content
regarding products/services. Overall, it can be said that the relationship
between PPC and content marketing is similar to sales promotion vs.
media advertisement comparison discussed in the traditional marketing
sections.
In short, consumers connect you through search engine’s links, but
you can only convince them and make them part of your business plan
only through your content marketing. Successful content marketing, in
this sense, should be seen as an interactive communication tool that helps
companies to bring their consumers into their worlds with the right story
and good quality of content. Good quality of content is generally defined
as a content that offers continuous value in the form of trustworthy and
rich information.30 Furthermore, the quality of content is affected by the
ease of use, usefulness of the content as well as visual and audio appeal,
and freshness which indicated how often the content is updated with
new information.31 Eventually, if the quality of content is seen as high, it
means the content is not only visited more frequently but also liked and
shared with more potential audiences which increases the dissemination
of the content in the markets (can also be conceptualized as “shareability”
of content). In other words, if a consumer likes a content so much so that
decided to share with others, then that is the sign of high-quality content.
Likeability of the content can stimulate shareability.
 10 CONTENT 193

Content Mix
Companies can use various tools to increase effectiveness and efficiency of
their content marketing practices. There are four major types of content
format that are most commonly used in today’s digital environments:
“written content” (e.g., articles, blogs, eBooks, etc.), “audio content”
(e.g., podcasts, audiobooks, etc.), “visual content” (e.g., pictures, photos,
infographics, etc.), and finally “video content” (e.g., videos, webinars,
etc.). I name these four types of content as “content mix”. Naturally,
each type of content mix element has its own pros and cons that need to
be discussed in this section.

Written Content
In the early days of the Internet, written content was the only commu-
nication format companies can use. Written content is still the major
content feature used by many companies as a major communication
tool as well. Everything written on the company’s website or digital
platform can be considered as written content. This requires some edito-
rial approach to develop to present the company and brand in right
and appealing manner. The company is acting as its own publishing
company and some hire top writers/editors/journalists to implement
successful content management on their digital platforms.32 In consumer
or company blogs, eBooks, or any simple article, wording and clarity
of the language of the content determine the quality of the content.
When the quality of content fits audiences’ expectations, the likelihood of
consumer revisiting the digital platform increases. Recent research showed
that over 60% of marketers believe that written content is detrimental for
successful content marketing management.33

Audio Content
However, written content has some limitations. Consumers with disabil-
ities, specifically blind audiences, cannot be benefited from written
content, thus audio content could open the door to the digital world
for these kinds of consumers. For example, in 1998, the Rehabili-
tation Act was amended by Congress to require federal agencies to
make information technology accessible to people with disabilities (“Sec-
tion 508”) but at the corporate level there are no federal requirements
194 S. U. KUCUK

that prevent consumers with disabilities from accessing digital markets.34

Audio content can easily pass some disability limitations. For example,
many authors are creating audiobooks and podcasts to reach a wide variety
of consumers whether they have a disability or not. It is easier to listen
to a speech or an article than read them in the majority of cases. With
the increasing popularity of smartphones, now the majority of consumers
prefer to wear their headphones/earbuds wherever and whenever they
want as it is not easy to read and follow the content on the small screens
of smartphones. Furthermore, in traditional marketing theory, it is found
that consumers who are exposed to music spend more time in shopping
which increases the likelihood of consumers’ purchase decisions.35 In the
digital world, consumers visit a company’s website.36 Similarly, it is found
that background music tempo could positively affect consumer arousal
and hence this would increase consumer engagement in content while
the consumer is interacting with the content.37 Not every kind of back-
ground music would give the same experience to the consumers. The
music or tempo should fit the persuasion context, product/services cate-
gory features as well as brands’ symbolic meanings in order to reach the
desired outcomes.38 Overall, when written content is supported by audio
content, the consumer engagement and hence learning will be more likely
to increase.

Visual Content
Another content mix element that can increase the effectiveness of the
website content is the visual materials used on the websites. About 60%
of marketers indicate that they use image-based content that includes
photos, charts, and infographics in their content development efforts.39
In traditional retailing format, visual signs with various colors are used as
shopping cues and hence they determine the quality and satisfaction of
their visits.40 This is, similarly, the case in digital world as well. Various
visuals, signs, and color structures eventually influence consumers’ experi-
ence with the website.41 As a well-known quote says, “a picture is worth
a thousand words”. Thus, adding more visuals (pictures, graphs, etc.)
and appropriate content on the website content can increase consumer
engagement and interactions with the website content.42 It is also well-
accepted fact that including visuals, especially pictures, into company
communication and advertisement could enhance consumer learning and
comprehension.43 For the maximum impact, the visuals should be more
 10 CONTENT 195

concrete and interactive. Similarly, researchers indicated that when visual

content is presented with well-written content, consumer comprehension
and learning reach higher levels for very new products.44 In other words,
visual content could enhance consumer learning and engagement which
eventually increases consumer revisit and patronage.45 Furthermore, the
determination of where to insert and size of visuals on the website would
also change the effectiveness of content marketing.46 In the Western
world, people start reading a document or scanning a screen from the
top-right of the screen horizontally and some point viewers look down
the page a little in the middle of the page, and finally end their scan-
ning keeping their eyes on the left side as viewers eventually lose their
attention at the bottom of the page. Thus, the majority of the eye move-
ments aggregated in the horizontal top of the page and a little bit in the
middle and fades away while staying on the left side of the page. This
resulted in an F-shaped reading structure on the eye-tracking system.47
The F-shape could reveal itself in a reverse format (F) in some other
cultures (e.g., Arabic cultures) as reading is from right to left but not left
to right as in Western cultures. If consumers follow F-shaped scanning
patterns, hence the places they intensively scanned will be perfect spots
for advertisement as consumers’ attention could be at higher levels along
this F pattern. Eventually, digital places along the F-shape gain more valu-
able since consumers spend more time and attention on those spots. The
value of such spots is also realized by the advertisers and website hosts.
Webhosts could ask more advertisement dollars for these places to increase
revenues while advertiser increases the effectiveness of visual contents,
such as banner ads, by placing their messages in visually more effective
spots.
In this context, banner advertisements are also part of a host website’s
visual content, the relevance between website brand and banner ad
content determines the success of such ads. However, such banner ads
as visual content are perceived as hard-sale techniques by consumers.
Further, if a website sells too much space for banner ads, consumers who
are there for different reasons might not be able to see and understand the
values and meanings provided by the website’s own original content and
this might cause viewer frustration. Thus, the size of the banner ads as a
visual content tool can limit these consumers’ movement on the website
and hence this might be fireback. Research also indicated that consumers
might avoid looking at banner ads (aka “banner ad blindness”) or not
remember what they see as they started to look down on these kinds of
196 S. U. KUCUK

content48 perhaps because of the invasive use of banner ads as a visual

content tool. In fact, the research also showed that banner ads are not
only avoided but also might reduce the positive effects of attention on
consumer memory.49 Thus, the challenge is to find a balance between the
webhost’s advertisement revenue and preserving its website/brand iden-
tity/image by positioning banner ads at the right places with the right
amount of information and amusing amenities.

Video Content
The majority of marketers and content developers started to use video
content in which various technologically rich content features they
can utilize. Video is far more effective in gaining consumer atten-
tion and interest as it can provide sound, various pictures, and written
titles/subtitles. In today’s mobile commerce age, reading a content in a
smartphone could be painful for many, but this is not the case for video
content. Recent surveys revealed that video content is the top content
tool used by majority of marketers.50 Video content, either it is used
on the company’s social networking site or on its own website, posi-
tively influences consumer engagement51 better than any other content
mix elements. The majority of consumers are attracted by the videoed
content and spend more time on the website, which, in turn, improves
sales numbers as well as consumer learning experiences with the prod-
ucts/services.52 Moreover, video content not only enhances consumer
engagement53 but also provides rich entertainment options54 for the
viewers as also pictured in Fig. 10.3. Thus, it won’t be wrong to say
that video is the king of the content mix.
Nowadays, some sector of consumers starts to use their smartphones
like traditional TV and hence demand more videoed content instead of
reading or listening to an article. Video content seems to replace tradi-
tional TV as many consumers are searching for videos of news articles,
documentaries, movies, DIYs (do it yourself), or any other content on
YouTube and other video content providers on pocket-size screens of
their mobile devices. Because wide variety of use of video content, video
advertisements also gain more importance in today’s digital advertisement
market. In this context, the majority of the advertisement rules discussed
in Promotion chapter would be still valid for digital video advertise-
ments with some little exceptions for younger consumers. For example,
recent research found that short video advertisements are as effective as
 10 CONTENT 197

Effectiveness Engagement

Entertainment

Learning

Content Type
Written Content Audio Content Visual Content Video Content
Blogs Podcasts Pictures Videos
e-Books Audiobooks Photos Webinars
Articles Infographics Live Streaming

Fig. 10.3 Evaluation of content mix effectiveness

longer digital videos in terms of creating brand recall, brand attitude, and
advertisement liking55 as also pictured in Fig. 10.4.
As it can be observed from Fig. 10.4 that if the 30-second video adver-
tisement is base (100%), 7-second ad effectiveness is more effective than
15-second and 30-second video ads (60% as effective as 30-second video
ads). This is an indication of the advertisement diminishing returns law.
This is, especially true for young consumers as they prefer to watch a
shorter version of video ads with a straight-line story on their mobile
devices. However, longer video ads with an emotional storyline could
also be valuable for different age segments.
Video content is being used in various social digital platforms. Interest-
ingly, recent research also revealed that videos on social media platforms
could have only a modestly larger impact, still is a higher impact, on polit-
ical persuasion than the written word perhaps because of an increasing
amount of fake and misleading video dissemination by rivals.56 Thus,
there is some resistance against trustworthiness of video content is gaining
ground even though the effectiveness of video contents on viewer’s feel-
ings and behaviors. Yet, it could be safe to say that among all four content
types, video content could create the highest impact on consumer’s feel-
ings and emotions as video content simply carries all types of content’s
198 S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 10.4 Relative effectiveness of shorter versus longer video advertisements

(Source Varan et al. [2020: 56])

features itself. In short, video content is the king when you are talking
about content marketing.
However, this doesn’t mean that a business should only use video
content and ignore all the other types of contents discussed here. For
example, neither audio nor visual nor video content can be detected by
search engines without written content. Hence, written content’s impor-
tance cannot be ignored until new semiotic rules can replace written
format or search engines figure out how to detect visuals and videos with
their algorithms. Thus, companies should be aware that each content
type has its own pros and cons, and hence well-balanced use of such
content features can create strong synergy effects on consumers learning,
entertainment, and engagement as there is no one-fit-all content format.
For example, in B2B markets where one-on-one communications play
a significant role, in-person communications utilizing written content
(email newsletters, blog posts, etc.) may create more brand awareness
while webinars might help company leads to convert consumers.57 Visu-
ally attractive advertisements with the right branding message could play
a significant role in either attracting or converting consumers when there
are no video options. Or alternatively, on YouTube, which is a pure
 10 CONTENT 199

content consumption business, you can watch billions of videos for enter-
tainment or training reasons as well as consumer views about such videos
in written format. Thus, each content plays a different role depending
on the business model. Even in a purely video content business, written
content plays an important role in educative and entertaining consumer
and viewer experience. This written content can easily be detected by
search engines which bring more traffic to YouTube and similar busi-
nesses. If such written consumer reviews on a video increase, this also
pulls the updating frequency to higher levels which attracts search engine
detection systems. Furthermore, close captioning features and subtitled
translations are all considered as written content even though the business
model solely focuses on video streaming. Thus, no single type of content
can be ignored in a content marketing planning even if the business model
predominantly builds upon a single content type.

Content Mix Management

The question at this point is how a business would weigh or organize
each content mix element to reach maximum communication and content
marketing effectiveness. How many videos or visual artifacts should the
company use or how long written discussions should be to reach effec-
tive and engaging communication with consumers? The answer to this
fundamental question will eventually determine the success of content
mix management and the fundamental structure of content marketing.
Clearly, the success of content management is highly dependent on the
type of market structure and even national culture. For example, in B2B
markets, face-to-face communication features (e.g., video conferencing,
etc.) and personalized content (e.g., expert reports, blogs, and special
instruction videos) predominantly play role in content marketing strategy.
In B2C markets, visual content (e.g., various forms of ads such as banner
ads), written content by consumer influencers (e.g., blogs, consumer
reviews), and video advertisements that focus on consumer masses will
build the backbone of the content marketing strategy. Similarly, infor-
mative content might play a significant role in B2B content marketing
and entertaining and engaging content would play important role in B2C
content marketing practices. In this context, written content can generally
be perceived as an information-rich source while video and visual content
could increase consumer engagement and willingness to spend more time
and money with the company in B2C markets.
200 S. U. KUCUK

Country cultures could also affect the type of content consumption as

different symbols, colors, and philosophies have different meanings and
different usage in different cultures. For example, in cultures with high
uncertainty avoidance scores, in which strict and rigid code of behaviors
plays importance, less ambiguous and clear rules shape people’s behav-
iors and hence the website content should more focus on simple web
design with a few written words with clear instructions. Information will
be more valued in these cultures and hence informative website content
can attract more consumers.58 In high power distance cultures, company
CEO’s or President’s pictures play a significant role; ordinary people’s or
worker’s pictures could be seen more valuable in low power distance soci-
eties. Similarly, in some high-context cultures, use of verbal meaning, and
word increase interest and learning effectiveness while low-context culture
symbols and non-verbal cues play a significant role in communication.59
And hence, written content can be more effective than visual content
in terms of creating awareness and learning in high-context cultures and
vice versa. Consumption of written and visual content could also show
differences among different age and gender groups in different cultural
contexts.60 Overall, the content strategy should focus on interactivity in
any cultural and generational levels by enhancing the website’s ability to
generate the best results for consumer queries and searches.61
Research revealed that one of the most effective ways to reach interac-
tivity with consumers is through providing more control in their searches
and interactions with the websites such as providing customization and
personalization options.62 This is a split from the traditional “marketer-
generated content” (MGC) development idea, which gathered all the
content development and presentation authority in marketers rather than
consumers or third parties (as also pictured in Fig. 9.5). However, sharing
the control of content with consumers enhances and increases consumer
pleasure and satisfaction in a shopping process,63 as well as consumers’
attitude and loyalty to the website and hence to the company. Thus, such
content management options should be discussed in detail.

Personalization
It is almost impossible to reach only one content format by successfully
synchronizing all the content mix elements and provide the best solution
for every single viewer on every single occasion. Everybody has their own
specific tastes and preferences, and hence search the content they want
 10 CONTENT 201

to consume. Thus, personalization provides relevant and individualized

content that makes consumers easily access information and content when
they needed. Personalization is like going to your favorite café and having
your favorite drink ready when you appear at the door, even before you
order it or in fact even if you didn’t know what and when to order it.
In other words, personalization focuses on delivering the right content,
and the best service, to the right consumer at the right time and the
right place.64 However, if you have something else in your mind that
day, personalization might not work the way it is supposed to work as
sometimes consumer psychology can change suddenly with no purpose,
and hence personalization has limits.
Before personalization, companies tried to customize consumer pref-
erences by directly asking them. Thus, it might not be wrong to say
that customization was the father of personalization in this respect. In
an ordinary customization process, content selection process is under
user’s/consumer’s control as a user can go and change his/her pref-
erences anytime s/he wants. In other words, customization is highly
dependent on users’ natural intelligence. In today’s age, personalization
is managed by the computers rather than actual user’s or consumer’s
requests. Simply, personalization is a process intended to predict indi-
vidual consumer needs and consequently provide appropriate services
through the website content to satisfy those needs. Thus, predictability
is at the center of personalization while that’s not always the case in
customization. In a simple personalization process, computer algorithms
developed by the company-run website content try to predict consumer
content choices based on their and some cases even others’ previous
choices. In other words, users have very passive control, or in some cases
have no control over what to see in personalization process while every-
thing was under control of users in customization. It could be fair to
discuss that personalization is computer-driven and highly dependent on
“artificial intelligence” (AI) developed by the company rather than user’s
or consumer’s own choices and intelligence. In short, personalization
is mostly company-initiated while customization is consumer-oriented
concept.65 Because personalization is company-initiated, it also raises
the users’ privacy concerns and hence leads to trust problems with
the company.66 Although not every consumer likes to personalize their
website content, the lack of a personalization option of content is
sometimes seen as poor content and website services. The goal with
personalization is to make consumers’ access to information as easy as
202 S. U. KUCUK

possible for them,67 and in fact, make it more than convenient and hence
make it effortless for consumers. This, eventually, increase the company’s
revenue as well as digital marketing efficiency.68
Personalization requires a high-level of interactivity with consumers,
and very accurate information collection about current and future
consumer needs. Once the individual consumer preferences are spec-
ified by the website content algorithm, the best combination of the
content mix can be served to consumers for consumption. This process
could entirely be computer-driven and requires less human interrup-
tion. The personalized website content should read consumers’ minds,
consumer’s knowledge, and their preferences, needs, tastes, and passions
and act accordingly. This, eventually, creates a major privacy concern
of consumers whose website visits are personalized by the company.69
However, if the website or digital platform gives more control on
consumers on personalization of the content rather than automatic and
computerized personalization systems, that would help to the website
to eliminate the perceived viewers’ risks. The interaction between the
personalization system and the consumer should be efficient and build
on a strong trustworthy relationship with the content developer if it
is to better serve both consumers and the company. Different than
website content personalization, in social media platforms, companies
have no control over the content. Consumers develop their own content
with limited personalization options. This, in turn, gave birth to the
revolutionary “User-Generated Content (UGC)” mentality.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

Major weakness of personalization can be eliminated by implementing
user-generated content. UGS is mostly seen as user-friendly and useful by
consumers as consumers, themselves, determine their own understanding
of user-friendliness and usefulness. This means companies are shifting
the control of their content management to consumers, influencers, and
content creators.
In the beginning, consumer control over content is generally limited
to marketer-generated content (MGC). This limitation gives companies
more control over their message and helps them to determine the level
of their relationship with consumers. Such MGC shows many similar-
ities traditional marketing and sales approaches. However, in the case
of UGC, consumers are provided with platforms where they can freely
 10 CONTENT 203

generate their own content and define the intensity of the relation-
ship with companies, fellow consumers, and their brands. Most UGC is
predominantly generated in the blogosphere and on social networking
sites by bloggers or video bloggers. In UGC applications, a digital plat-
form and the vast majority of content are provided to consumers to
develop their own messages and value systems. Blogs are excellent exam-
ples of UGC: “one study showed that four of five bloggers post brand and
product reviews”.70 Since many blogs also link to company websites and
constantly discuss products and brands, this eventually boosts company
SEM efforts. In these digital environments, consumers can easily change
or add new information to website content and achieve real-time and up-
to-date communication with their audiences. Hence, companies can pick
words and phrases used by bloggers and add them to their metatags for
better findability.
Consumers are also purchasing directly through blog links and posts.71
Because most of the content is created by consumers, website owners
just need to deal with organizing and providing new content opportu-
nities around the website. In this way, companies that are the subject
of the content-creation process can easily follow consumer thoughts and
feelings about their brands and operations, in real time, with significant
objectivity. Because UGC is created by real consumers and the informa-
tion sources are real persons, the message credibility is higher than for
MGC or marketer-generated messages.72 Specifically, consumer-produced
brand-related messages and information sharing are perceived as highly
credible.73 This, in turn, leads to more positive brand attitudes toward
UGC rather than MGC or company-sponsored content.74 Such bloggers
are also working as influencers, and hence generate a significant number of
viewers to their digital destinations. Advertising through such consumer
channels could help companies to develop a trustworthy relationship with
their consumers. In other words, companies that are trying to work with
such consumer content creators and/or bloggers to positively promote
their brands will eventually stay ahead of the game. Hiring a blogger who
can promote a company, an idea, or a brand is becoming a regular practice
in today’s markets.
MGC can easily be associated with traditional marketing and adver-
tising as the company has ultimate power over what is to be said. This role
is transferred to machines and computer algorithms with personalization.
As discussed above, personalization is not a perfect content development
tool either. It can be said that more content control is transferred to
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consumer creators with UGC. Thus, UGC generally gains more cred-
ibility and impact in digital markets as also pictured in Fig. 10.5. The
more users develop more content the more other consumers and markets
can also be exposed to company’s brand and its associations. This, in turn,
also increases company’s chances of being found through search engines
in digital platforms since the brand would be mentioned in many different
places. Because the company has less or no control over UGC, companies
should make sure that the content developed by consumers is not directly
targeting the company and attacking the brands. Otherwise, consumers’
negative attitudes in markets could exponentially increase as a result.75
On the other hand, many companies are also monitoring websites in
the blogosphere and social networking sites to learn more about possible
consumer complaints before their brands are damaged.76 Most impor-
tantly, because of the lack of control mechanisms on UGC websites to
check the accuracy of such postings, hardly anyone knows when posts are
false or include defamatory content. The credibility of this kind of sneaky
advertising is, in fact, questionable, and the “Federal Trade Commission”
(FTC) in the USA recently discussed the full disclosures of money or gifts
received from companies by hired bloggers.

Credibility

Consumer
Control
Marketer-Generated Personalization User-Generated
Content Content

Fig. 10.5 Consumer control and credibility relationship in content manage-

ment
 10 CONTENT 205

Yesterday’s passive content consumers are today’s active content

creators and hence their work should be protected by copyright laws.
In this context, the major question is whether such UGC creators’ work
could be under the protection of copyright laws, especially since every-
body can now easily copy/paste such digital work for their own use.
Although some believe users should have fair-use or limited-use rights,
these kinds of problems in front of UGC are creating pressure on legal
systems all around the world. The solution could be the development of
legal platforms in which both authors/creators and users as equal and
integrated components of tomorrow’s copyright systems.77

Content Complexity
With the increasing ease of generating digital content features provided
by the digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., there
is a significant increase in content flowing in social networking sites and
online communities. However, the majority of such consumer-generated
content is not created from the professional communication theories
perspectives in mind. Thus, majority of content has been seen as complex
and difficult to understand, and hence it doesn’t serve the creator’s
communication purpose nor the receivers’ expectations. Such content
complexity made it harder to attract and hold consumers’ and/or users’
attention within an expected level for flawless information transfer and
marketing communication. Even if the receiver processes such message,
it could be hard to remember and store the images and visual artifacts in
his/her memory. Eventually, content complexity is not easy to control and
manage, hence potential complexity measures and components should be
closely investigated for better-functioning communications in the digital
platforms.
Content complexity covers both textual and visual content elements
that are difficult to read and understand the meanings intricacy presented
by the message or post creator. Textual complexity could be discussed
with the use of irrelevant or difficult to understand words, grammar errors
as well as the font of the letters that don’t fit the message and hence
the semantic meaning system. Visual complexity, on the other hand,
could also cover textual complexity which indicates irrelevant and redun-
dant information presentation with incorrect image and visual alignments,
angels, hue, brightness, colors, and forms.78 Thus, content complexity
can be used interchangeably with visual complexity in this sense. Although
206 S. U. KUCUK

general knowledge points out that simplicity could be a solution for this
kind of complexity problem, some claims that such complexity might also
stop people and make them pay more attention to the message and hence
it is not a bad thing.79 Recently, researchers defined two main visual
complexity components in advertisement literature: “feature complexity”
and “design complexity”.80
Feature complexity indicates the structural representation of an image
and hence activates low-level visual processes,81 features like color, lumi-
nance, and edge density of the image or visual representation.82 Feature
complexity can be observed within the unprocessed and unstructured
image without the meaning of the image itself.83 On the other hand,
design complexity is related to more semantic and meaning processes of
the image and hence requires high-level visual processing and decoding
efforts. In this respect, design complexity does not create an impact
in pleasure and arousal as possible in feature complexity.84 Design
complexity reflects the complexity of shapes, objects, and organization
and the presentation of such images and hence its contributing factors
can be summarized as quantity of objects, irregularity of objects, dissimi-
larity of objects, detail of objects, asymmetry of object arrangement, and
finally irregularity of object arrangement.85 Overall, it can be said that
the complexity created by an unstructured representation of an image or
visual representation can be seen as a root cause of feature complexity
while complexity created by the semantic embodiment of the image indi-
cates design complexity. Both these complexities influence consumers’
and/or receivers’ likeability of the image as well as their attitude toward
the message as well as the brand used in the visual representation.
Research in advertisement literature showed that feature complexity
has a negative impact on consumers’ brand attention and attitude toward
the advertisements while design complexity could have a positive impact
on consumer attention and likeability of the advertisement.86 Further,
research in consumer digital content liking in social networking sites also
revealed similar results.87 In other words, feature complexity revealed
an inverted u-shape with consumer liking, design complexity showed a
regular u-shaped relationship88 as also pictured in Fig. 10.6.
Feature complexity could have a short-term effect and work more
like an impulsive manner while design complexity generally requires
more time and thinking and understanding of the semantic structure.
Consumer could perceive that the design complexity is hard to under-
stand, and hence it is hard for the consumer to pass through the
complex semiotic structure and hence likeability of the image goes down.
 10 CONTENT 207

Visual Complexity

Design Complexity

Feature Complexity

Liking

Fig. 10.6 Visual complexity and consumer liking

However, once consumer spends enough time and started to understand

and enjoy the advertisement image or an ordinary visual image posted
on a social networking site, the likeability could go up as a result. This
is similar to how museum goers evaluate artwork on the walls of art
museums. You find many people who are spending minutes and hours
watching the same painting. In some cases, the more they spend time
looking at a painting the more meaning and beauty they found in the
paint and the more enjoy the paint. Contrary, although a message receiver
might be attracted to the combination of image features that stimu-
late impulsive liking at the beginning, this could turn dislike once the
consumers might realize that the message of image and meaning systems
presented are not as good as pictured with an inverted u-shape for feature
complexity in Fig. 10.6. Overall, feature complexity could hurt visual
presentation and advertisement message while design complexity could
improve consumer likeability and further image comprehensibility as well
as attitude toward the advertisement message.89 As a result, although
design complexity could be recommended for message creators while
keeping feature complexity at minimum levels would be advised.

Conclusion
Content is perhaps the first thing consumer’s face when they are dealing
with companies in the digital world. Thus, the first impression and
following interaction with the website determine consumers’ satisfaction,
208 S. U. KUCUK

and loyalty to the website, company, and hence brand. Today’s websites
started to implement various types of rich content options and hence
the management of content mix is a challenge. This, in turn, increased
content complexity which can eventually negatively influence consumers’
experiences. There is clearly a content filtering problem as the consumer
attention span is getting narrower as a result of increasing number of ways
to reach consumers is staggering. One of the ways to control content
overload and complexity is sharing the responsibility with consumers by
empowering them with UGC and/or with right algorithms that can
easily implement personalized solutions for consumers through the help
of AI systems. Shifting control of content development and sharing
to consumers doesn’t come up with caveats in the digital markets as
consumers can now direct the gun to companies whose business mentality
and operations don’t align with them and the society at large. As a result,
companies should monitor UGC closely such as bloggers who regu-
larly develop content regarding the brands to learn more about company
mistakes and successes. Furthermore, companies and consumers together
should also make sure that such bloggers or content creators are honest
and acting with good faith and not sponsored by competitors or indi-
viduals with corrupt agendas. In this context, companies should carefully
pick the consumers to whom they are willing to give more control in
order to achieve message credibility by reducing content clutter in their
content marketing efforts. Today’s companies should accept the fact that
consumers are their partners in today’s marketing world and treat them
as such. They should collaborate with them respectfully to create the
most influential, engaging, and trustworthy website content applications
possible for all. Clearly, marketing is shifting from creating content solely
from the company’s perspective to sharing content with consumers and
integrating them into content development and management processes.
That lies at the heart of successful content marketing management which,
in turn, generates likeable content and message in today’s digital markets.

Notes
1. Koiso-Kanttila (2004: 46).
2. McKenna (1991).
3. McKenna (1991).
4. Content Marketing Institute; https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/
what-is-content-marketing/, visited on November 9, 2021.
5. Wall and Spinuzzi (2018).
 10 CONTENT 209

6. Jutkowitz (2014).
7. https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-
the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/, visited on March 26, 2022.
8. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
9. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
10. Jutkowitz (2014), Berger et al. (2021).
11. Jutkowitz (2014).
12. Jutkowitz (2014).
13. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
14. Kucuk (2011).
15. Shankar et al. (2003).
16. Papagiannis (2020).
17. Lou et al. (2019).
18. Horowitz (2006).
19. Chen (2021).
20. Daugherty et al. (2008), Muñiz and Schau (2011).
21. Bickart and Schindler (2001).
22. Lou and Xie (2021).
23. Lou et al. (2019).
24. Jutkowitz (2014).
25. Ho et al. (2020).
26. Müller and Christandl (2019), Lou et al. (2019).
27. Lou et al. (2019), Lou and Xie (2021).
28. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
29. https://alecanmarketing.com/blog/content-marketing-crushes-ppc-over-
time/, visited on November 18, 2021.
30. Busche (2017).
31. Papagiannis (2020).
32. Jutkowitz (2014).
33. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
34. Kucuk (2016).
35. Yalch and Spangenberg (2000).
36. Cheng et al. (2009), Ding and Lin (2012).
37. Ding and Lin (2012).
38. MacInnis and Park (1991).
39. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
40. Donovan and Rossiter (1982).
41. Eroglu et al. (2003), Cheng et al. (2009).
210 S. U. KUCUK

42. Papagiannis (2020).

43. Babin et al. (1992).
44. Feiereisen et al. (2008).
45. Weiger et al. (2020).
46. Papagiannis (2020).
47. Nielsen (2006).
48. Hervet et al. (2011).
49. Lee and Ahn (2012).
50. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021; https://neilpatel.com/blog/5-content-marketing-
trends-that-you-should-leverage-in-the-next-year/, visited on November
22, 2021.
51. Wang and Chan-Olmsted (2020).
52. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
53. Berger et al. (2021).
54. Liu et al. (2018).
55. Varan et al. (2020).
56. Wittenberg et al. (2021).
57. https://visme.co/blog/content-marketing-statistics/, visited on
November 9, 2021.
58. Singh and Pereira (2005).
59. Singh and Pereira (2005).
60. Belk et al. (2003).
61. Shankar et al. (2003).
62. Shankar et al. (2003).
63. Marmorstein et al. (1992), Shankar et al. (2003).
64. McCarthy (2001), Fan and Poole (2006), Sunikka and Bragge (2012).
65. Montgomery and Smith (2009).
66. Evans (2003), Pitta et al. (2003).
67. Shankar et al. (2003).
68. Boudet et al. (2019).
69. Cloarec et al. (2021).
70. Lamb et al. (2011: 251).
71. Sterne (2010).
72. Bickart and Schindler (2001), Johnson and Kay (2004).
73. Hope (2002).
74. Müller and Christandl (2019).
75. Kucuk (2008).
76. Kucuk (2008).
77. Wong (2008).
78. Donderi (2006), Pieters et al. (2010), Shin et al. (2020), Overgoor et al.
(2021).
 10 CONTENT 211

79. Pieters et al. (2010).

80. Pieters et al. (2010), Overgoor et al. (2021).
81. Overgoor et al. (2021).
82. Pieters et al. (2010).
83. Overgoor et al. (2021).
84. Overgoor et al. (2021).
85. Pieters et al. (2010).
86. Pieters et al. (2010).
87. Overgoor et al. (2021).
88. Overgoor et al. (2021).
89. Pieters et al. (2010), Overgoor et al. (2021).

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49(2), 139–147.
 CHAPTER 11

Community

Community is a sociological rather than a marketing concept until

the Internet was invented. Today, the concept has a “socio-marketing”
meaning especially with social network continuing to thrive as a new
marketing tool in the digital world. Community was an important
element of traditional marketing segmentation strategy as explained in
Product chapter. Companies traditionally look for consumers who have
similar needs and interests so that they don’t waste their marketing mix
efforts and develop related marketing mixes for each segment. In tradi-
tional marketing, all these segments were generally accepted as passive
recipients but not active participants and creators of market value. Such
grouped and/or segmented consumers were not even aware that they
are part of a homogenous group of consumers based on some artificial
attributes used by the company for profit. However, in today’s digital
markets, consumers created their freedom zones where they can act the
way they want to be free from company interruption. And that is empow-
ering. In other words, the center of gravity of marketing activities has
been shifted from companies to consumers with social networks and
digital communities. In these communities, consumers are aware that they
are part of some common idea and cause, and they are organically tied
to each other unlike traditional company-originated segmented group
of consumers. Furthermore, while individual consumer is technologically
empowered in the digital world, their power reaches new levels when

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 215

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_11
216 S. U. KUCUK

combined with other like-minded consumers within digital communities.

Thus, companies need not only understand consumers as their new part-
ners but also find a way to develop relationships to be a part of new
market value-creation processes in the digital markets.
In this respect, the first question needs to be answered is “What is
online community?”. And the next section is dedicated to discussing
changing meaning of community and its function in today’s digital
marketing world.

What Is Online Community?

Community is a place where a group of people share the same or
common interests, passion, values, and tastes. However, the sheer exis-
tence of a group of people who have similarities does not necessarily
create a community. From a traditional marketing perspective, common-
ality attributes are created by company and exposed to consumer groups
in segmentation strategies. But today’s consumers have freely picked such
attributes to form a community organically. Similarly, in order to talk
about a community, each member should also have a desire to connect,
share, and communicate with each other in many circumstances. In this
context, consumers need other consumers to share their ideas and expe-
riences so that they can feel self-fulfillment, validation, and in some cases
security and a sense of belongingness. And this could only be happened
thorough an organically and naturally developed ties. With the increasing
high connectivity in the digital markets, now consumers can connect
with millions of like-minded individuals all around the world and form
a community as long as they feel close to each other. Thus, the links
and ties between community members should naturally be strong and
hence they could be able to act like one entity and hence respond to
various situations in a same way without existence of preplanned arrange-
ments. Thus, community not only indicates homogenous existence of
group of people but also ability to organize the same purpose and act
together against threats and problems. In fact, community should be able
to generate synergy effects when the members act beyond their sheer exis-
tence. Thus, there should be a feeling of unity among members. Such
unity feeling eventually helps members to develop a deeper and strong
relationship with each other, which in turn indicates the power of such
community. Because of such unity feeling, consumers can easily share and
like content, ideas, and reviews with other fellow community members in
 11 COMMUNITY 217

digital communities and social networks. By liking a content in the digital

world, consumers are, in fact, tacitly sharing their self-identities, ideas, and
in fact their secrets with other like-minded individuals. The unity feelings
make sharing easier.
As a result, every online community could be discussed with three
major components in this sense:

1. common interests (commonality)

2. desire to connect, share, and communicate
3. feeling of unity (strength of psychological ties among community
members)

Life in each community could be different from other communities as

each community gets around its own common interests and develops its
own new norms and rules to reach its own common goals. This, even-
tually, enhances group members’ welfare. Each member provides value
for other like-minded member and works hard to develop solutions for
common problems of the community by sharing their solutions to a
problem. Such problems could be subjective and could only be under-
stood by such community members as they share the same values and life
views.
Working toward solving common problems together to create benefits
for all community members is easier than struggling such problems by
yourself your own, hence majority prefer to be related to a community
or at least touch base with them for potential benefits. In this context,
community is a perfect place for members to get some insights about
problem fixing not many understand outside the community and to find
an emotional support. From a marketer’s point of view, this could be
an opportunity to tap into consumers’ world and understand consumers’
problems and needs regarding their products and services. A commu-
nity can help companies to reduce their segmentation costs as such
communities form a segment and can easily be accessible as such group
of consumers consisted of group of people with similar interests and
passions, are already available and waiting to be discovered in the digital
universe. Thus, companies don’t need some sort of social engineering to
discover potential segments in this sense.
Furthermore, within such communities, members can also generate
new ideas, content, and messages that can provide an economic value to
218 S. U. KUCUK

the company and its brands if the brands are the subject of such conver-
sations.1 This, in turn, increases the importance of consumer–brand
communities which is defined as “a specialized, non-geographically bound
community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers
of a brand.”2 This new definition is slightly different than traditional
community definition as follows: “people who live within a geographically
defined area and who have social and psychological ties with each other and
with the place where they live.”3 As indicated in this definition, community
members should be in close vicinity so that they can interact with each
other regularly to reach community consciousness and unity. However,
with the internet revolution, such being in a geographically close desti-
nation requirement lost its importance as community members can now
meet virtually in anywhere at any time in digital gathering places such as
social networking sites, chatrooms, etc. This, in turn, not only changed
the definition of consumer online communities (e.g., brand communities)
but also brand admirers’ way of development of rituals, traditions, and
morals just like any other communities. Such technologic advancement is
now enabled to more people to get together and form a community more
easily than in traditional online communities. Because physical connect-
edness or geographical closeness is not required on the digital platforms,
community members’ social and mental awareness and hence “sense” of
connectedness gain more importance in the digital world than geographic
or physical closeness. Once this connectedness and social unity feeling is
established, members’ shareability of their creations increases, and hence
staggering amount of information can flow into markets through online
communities and social networks. This, in turn, could be a great source
of new marketing ideas for the company.

The Function of Online Community

In general media communication theory, there are two major nodes
in a simple communication process: source or message creator and the
receiver. This model reflects a major “audience” type communication in
which message source sends the message to audience who are passively
ready to receive such message and consume.4 This model is widely
accepted by TV, newspaper, and magazine viewers as also indicated with
“audience” model in Fig. 11.1. As you can see from the “audience”
model, there is no or very limited feedback from audience to sender and
hence this indicates one-sided communication. This is not the case in
 11 COMMUNITY 219

“community” model as pictured on the left in Fig. 11.1. In a community

model, communications are very open, very interactive, and hence there
is high-level of engagement and shareability among community members.
Traditionally, the company was the main source of the message creation
process in the audience process. In a community model, the company
loses its power over messaging as anybody can be a source and an audience
at the same time while this is almost impossible in the “audience” model
as depicted in Fig. 11.1. In other words, companies lose their powers in
market communication to the increasing numbers of consumer communi-
ties in the digital world. Thus, consumer’s voice plays an impactful role in
shaping market language and speech more than company-generated voice
elements as a simple content developed in online community could easily
get viral and change media rhetoric and influence other fellow consumers’
feelings and believes.5
Much of the work conducted by consumer members of online commu-
nities is voluntary and hence doesn’t cost a dime to company. Much
of the work conducted in such digital online communities can simply
be managed by well-trained paid employees. By creating an online
community consisting of dedicated and well-trained members, today’s
community can easily reduce their operational costs and reach break even
fast and easily. However, this raised the questions if the company’s taking

Fig. 11.1 What is community?6 https://thestartup.substack.com/p/online-

community (online—community by Richard Awoyemi—The Statup)
220 S. U. KUCUK

advantage of such volunteers’ altruistic motives for their own profit-

oriented goals by labor experts. The economic value created by such
community members is now company’s and hence such economic value
should be protected as discussed in the infamous AOL case.7 At some
point, AOL had more unpaid volunteers than paid employees as such
community members were provided free work for AOL, and this, natu-
rally, caused problems from Labor laws perspective. Today, such online
communities and social network sites are embedded into our lives so
much so that many online communities started to play a significant role
in individual and communal consumption on the Internet.8 Even some
are willing to pay extra money to companies to be able to be part of
company-created online communities as the company may provide rich
content and brand-friendly digital environment to its followers.9 Clearly,
online communities provide many opportunities for both consumers and
companies.
The internet is technologically a distributed network system in which
millions and billions of small or mega and/or company-initiated or
consumer-initiated natural communities interact daily for different reasons
and purposes. It won’t be wrong to say that the Internet, perhaps, has
become the most powerful social medium to date humanity has ever
known. It seems such communities or social networking sites are places
where billions of people share stories, information, pictures, and videos
(various forms of content) with their like-minded consumers, friends, and
even public daily all around the world. More than seventy percent of
American use social media to connect with their like-minded friends and
family daily, and about sixty to seventy percent of such users connect to
their network at least once a day.10 Further, the majority of social network
users’ (about almost 50%) first thing they do in the morning is to go check
their social media activities even before getting out of their bed.11 The last
thing they, especially millennials, do is also check their social media feeds
in their mobile devices before falling into sleep. In fact, some researchers
see mobile devices and smartphones as very addictive and one of today’s
major dopamine sources as pointed out by Lembke (2021): “The smart-
phone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine
24/7 for a wired generation” (p. 1). This is, perhaps, because of majority
of users don’t want to be left behind of community events and feeds, and
hence they want to stay continually in touch with others, which is also
conceptualized as “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out).12 The feeling of a
 11 COMMUNITY 221

constant desire to be connected with our network and community even-

tually makes such digital destinations a prime place for companies who
are begging for attention for their advertisement campaigns.
We, human beings, always want to be a part of a group either a family,
friends, or colleagues, and society at large to express and share our values
and identities. This is our way of feeling secure since the beginning of
the time. As Aristotle simply indicated; “we, by nature, are all social
animals and hence social relationships are one of our major needs of our
existence”. We had lost our ability to build a social relationship in the
post-industrialization era and just started to re-discover such needs with
the advent of the digital world, thanks to social networks. In other words,
the social networking revolution reminded us, one more time, that we do
not only need materials but also human touch as our happiness is also
highly depended on such human connection.13 Our happiness depended
on other’s happiness as well. When we see something interesting in our
social media feeds, we sometimes feel the urge to share such interesting
content with our friends, peers, or colleagues who might like it. By simply
putting our connections’ names in our social networking comments to
inform them, we link related content to the people close to us in our
community and network. Some community members are sure that if
there is something important is happening regarding themselves and/or
fits their interests, they would eventually hear the news from member
friends in their social networks.14 Thus, the community can increase
consumer connectivity with the related content, or can be called “content
matching”. In this process, community or social networking site works as
a major connector. Thus, there could be a direct link from connectivity
to community as also conceptualized in Fig. 11.2. Once users/consumers
connect with their social networks, they consume the ideas and content
used or shared by such network members as also pictured with the small
circle withing the community circle in Fig. 11.2.
Content, in this context, helps community members to express them-
selves and build group values, norms, and social identity.15 Content is
the backbone of online communities as a major communication process
and hence helps to strengthen the ties among community members
as members communicate with each other through the content they
genuinely develop within the community.16 In this context, an online
brand community could also alternatively be defined as a social gath-
ering place where members negotiate company-created brand’s cultural
and social codes and hence re-conceptualize and re-define the brand
222 S. U. KUCUK

CONNECTIVITY Community Content Commitment

Fig. 11.2 The role of community in 4Cs

meanings and identities through members’ voluntary content develop-

ment processes. Thus, community members are not only consuming
other members’ content but also developing their alternative realities
and/or perceptions of events as the digital space by nature functions most
like the substitution of our physical and/or tangible world. This is the
point at which content turns into a social experience17 or the purpose
of the community’s existence. This could alternatively be interpreted as
an escape from one reality to another with the content development
processes with the help of the community. Such close integration between
content and community, in turn, created a new and alternative form of
live or simulation of live in our social universe,18 what we call these days:
“Metaverse”.
In this context, Metaverse is a virtual environment as an alternative
to our physical universe, especially within the computer-game industry.19
This alternative universe is where members disconnect with the reality
and physical world and connect with their alternative identities in their
imaginary world. With the advent of virtual reality (VR) and augmented
reality (AR), metaverse created a new world in which individuals discover
new identities by developing various avatars of themselves and changing
such identities like changing dress as you are only limited to your content
choices. This, in fact, creates a demographic-free individuality as you
can be anybody at any time in any virtual event. This content-rich
virtual environment hence opens the door to brands that want to be
part of the metaverse through product placements or through creating
direct consumer–brand contact within the metaverse. Consumers interact
with brands like in the real world and hence consumer experience and
 11 COMMUNITY 223

engagement still play a significant role if companies can innovatively

and successfully embed themselves into this new universe. For example,
millions of people watched Ariana Grande’s concert inside the video game
called Fortnite,20 which is a perfect example of community and content
interactions as pictured in Fig. 11.2. Although these kinds of events blur
the lines between real world and metaverse, it also creates new opportu-
nities to increase community members’ satisfaction with the community
and content created in the metaverse.
Community members’ commitment to the digital community also
determines the members’ satisfaction and hence interactions with the
community (as pictured with “commitment” circle in Fig. 11.2).
Commitment, in this sense, indicates members’ desire to maintain posi-
tive and satisfying relationship with the community. This, in turn, is
reflected in the members’ willingness to participate in the community and
hence the length of engagement with the community.21 Each members’
commitment to community activities and community can significantly
vary.22 Some members engage with their community by only reading
the posts to learn products/service and hence collect information while
some others post their views and share their knowledge and emotions
with others. Members’ commitment to community also indicates the
members’ belief and trust in the company, its brand, and brand identity.
Research showed that trust in brand community would lead to commu-
nity commitment.23 Further, community commitment can have an impact
on consumer–brand attitude,24 which in turn might to brand loyalty.25
Interestingly, consumer community commitment plays out differently
depending on if the brand community is initiated by company or
consumers by themselves. Information quality, which indicates the cred-
ibility, newness, and excellence of information gained from the commu-
nity discussions, is found more important in consumer-initiated brand
communities rather than in company-initiated counterparts.26 This, one
more time, emphasizes that community members are intended to trust
their fellow community members than company-generated activities and
messages. Eventually, such commitment to community would encourage
members to spread the word about the brand and the company.27
Finally, e-WOM (electronic Word-of-Mouth) research also indicated that
consumers might perceive consumer-generated e-WOM messages as more
credible than marketer-created information provided in the digital plat-
forms.28 Thus, commitment to community members and their messages
224 S. U. KUCUK

play a significant role in interacting with other “C” elements as also

indicated in Fig. 11.2.
The interaction of “community” component with other 4C elements
indicates that community is indispensable part of today’s digital marketing
efforts as also conceptualized with Fig. 11.2. Our discussion showed
that online consumer communities built through social networking sites
or other digital platforms provide efficiency and convenience for both
companies and consumers in today’s modern marketing world.29 In this
context, the overall benefits of these communities can also be summarized
as follows:

1. Online communities are places where companies can obtain valu-

able insights, new ideas, and genuine feedback (positive or negative)
about their business, brands, and services from consumers. In fact,
some consumers go beyond being idea sources; create value and
voluntary work to produce the necessary services for the brand as
we discussed with AOL example above. This created a new type of
consumers called producer consumers, or “prosumers”30 in today’s
digital world. Furthermore, online communities are perfect places
where creation of user-generated content is freely shared with other
members and public.
2. Because online communities consist of consumer members, such
communities can provide effective communication platforms for
companies with group of consumers and community members.
Companies can easily access communities filled with similar
consumers in terms of needs, values, and identities. The traffic
generated by these communities can be staggering and hence it
naturally attracts companies who are willing to communicate with
such consumers through advertisements or other digital media tools.
In other words, online communities are perfect places for advertise-
ment targeting and hence revenue generation for a hosting company
(such as Facebook, and Twitter). And hence, market growth can
come from such communities.
3. Online communities and social networking sites are also places
where consumer members generate positive and negative e-WOM
(electronic Word-of-Mouth) for or against brands and compa-
nies. e-WOM is generated withing such communities could be
very effective as they can be spreader to the markets because
of the network effects and like a bush fire and hence influence
 11 COMMUNITY 225

company brand identity, position, and hence revenues, especially

negative e-WOM. This, in turn, accelerates the development of
various “viral marketing” tools to benefit such consumer-generated
e-WOM campaigns. Online communities, in this context, empower
consumer’s voice and hence gave consumers a new platform where
they can freely express their opinions without being caught by
corporate media filtering systems on the same footing with compa-
nies. This, in turn, created voice equalization between consumers
and companies and gave birth to a new type of consumers, called
“voicesumers”31 who play a significant role in shaping the market
speech with their voice.

Although the first benefit mentioned above has some indirect, struc-
tural, and long-term effects on company operations and revenue, the
last two benefits mentioned here, such as advertisement revenue and
WOM generation, could have a direct and immediate impact on business
operations.

Online Community Detection

Although some communities are naturally formed as everyone realizes
the similarities with other like-minded individuals and form a commu-
nity without even realizing it, some people need a push to discover the
similarities and potentials with others on the same space or platform
they are habitation. Such discovery is generally difficult to be realized
by the member themselves sometimes especially when you consider the
staggering number of individuals and interactions happening within the
digital platforms every day. Community detection reveals and proposes
the potential communities by clustering intrinsic community structures
based on individuals’ demographics, views, interests, relationships, and
personalities otherwise it is not realized or formed by such individuals
by themselves. This might make some potential communities realize that
they are more community than they even formally affiliated to. Detection
of community is important as it also reveals hidden hierarchical and social
structures that were out of company radar in a networked world.32
As pictured in Fig. 11.3a, there could be many individuals within
a digital platform and various communities could naturally form if the
members discover their similarities and differences. If such members
and their interactions could closely be investigated, it would be fair to
226 S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 11.3 Community detection and link suggestion (Source Karataş & Şahin
[2018])

say that such individuals are also satisfying the requirements of being a
community. This is a typical community detection process as pictured in
Fig. 11.3b, where there are four distinct communities detected (“C1”
with yellow, “C2” with blue, “C3” with purple, and “C4” with red
group). Alternatively, social platform hosts could treat such groups of
people as a community and develop the right content and direct the
relevant advertisement to these communities.
Online community detection can introduce some benefits to both the
digital platform host and the newly discovered community members.
The host increases the number of communities within its network and
such fragmented structure helps the host to better serve the communi-
ties and its members. This, further, helps companies to discover hidden
sources of market voice and e-WOM. Tapping this hidden community
voice can provide new avenues to digital platform hosts and advertisers.
Furthermore, digging deep into these communities could also strengthen
the community structure as members could enjoy newly discovered like-
minded members to interact with as also pictured in Fig. 11.3. In this
context, many social networking sites, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, are
accelerating the community development process by suggesting poten-
tial links to each member who is not aware of the ones yet on the same
footing with them. This link suggestion practice between members has
the potential to create more content relationship among members. For
 11 COMMUNITY 227

example, in C1 in Fig. 11.3b, nodes # 4 and # 5 don’t look connected

and hence encouraging these individuals to connect could make the C1
a stronger community and hence could provide fruitful results for both
these members and the community. In C3, there is no link suggestion
that can be made as all the members have connected with each other
already. Overall, digital platforms develop better communities and make
the communication more fluent and relevant for the members as well as
advertisers who are trying to reach concentrated consumer communities.
Overall, some of the online communities are naturally formed by them-
selves and some need a nudge to form a community that can work around
a common goal and interest as explained in this section. Once a commu-
nity or social network is naturally formed or detected by the company,
it is easier for a market agent to approach such group of individuals
to share what they like to satisfy their needs and hence create market
value. Thus, likability, as also discussed in the content section, would rela-
tively be easier to reach. Yet, that doesn’t guarantee that the content or
information is shareable with the whole community. Many consumers are
belonging to more than one online community or social network and
involve and interact with them at different levels, from closely knitted
versus loosely knitted. Thus, if a content liked in one community can also
easily be transmitted to other communities, and hence ideas, content or
product/service information can easily get viral. In short, if the content
is likeable, then it is shareable within the community for everybody’s
benefits and pleasure.

Shareability
Companies need to know whom and what content their consumers are
actively involving in and interacting with so that they can understand
their constantly changing interests and develop solutions accordingly.
Many consumers’ attention is influenced by how many likes and how
many comments a social media post gets. In other words, every time a
consumer likes a post in a social media environment, they unconsciously
and intuitively promote such post. Thus, many consumers find their way
by looking at other consumers or user’s likes and comments they have
tied to in their social networks. In this context, engagement measures
such as likes, comments, and clicks to a content, either they are company-
generated or consumer-generated content, can be used leading indicators
of consumers’ attitudes. In fact, research revealed that the numbers of
228 S. U. KUCUK

consumer “likes” or liking has a positive impact on other consumers’

brand evaluations33 and can also lead to positive consumer offline behav-
iors.34 Hence, consumer likes can also be used as indicators of consumer
spending and overall profitability35 as consumer could utilize such socially
selling cues (likes) in their decisions.36 In other words, consumer like-
ability could be used as an early indicator of consumer purchase decisions
since such indices directly influence consumers’ purchase decisions and
content consumption behaviors in social media as also pointed out with
“Sales Revenue” line in Fig. 11.4. One good example of this lien of
revenue generation process is Tesla. Tesla does not use many of the tradi-
tional marketing tools but only uses social media for marketing. In other
words, if a company can have a very innovative product/services gain
some initial attention in the market, social media and online commu-
nities could accelerate diffusion of the product/services in the markets
with increasing sales numbers. This is a very effective and less costly way
of promoting products/services. As a result, many companies use social
media and online communities to present and sale their products/services
successfully on today’s digital platforms.
Similarly, likeable content can be shared among the social media or
online community followers which can lead to more conversion. Although
“conversion” as a concept could be used as synonym of purchase or
indicate if consumers purchase something from your website; it can also
mean that your content was able to convert such visitor to a follower.
They register with company’s website or some influential individual’s
blog or social networking site and hence willing to follow you to hear
from you more often since you are producing likeable content and ideas.
In this respect, the more follower a digital platform has the more likely
that such followers will share the liked content with others within their

Advertisement Revenue

Shareability Conversion
Likeability Purchase

Sales Revenue

Fig. 11.4 The impact of likeability and shareability

 11 COMMUNITY 229

social networks. The more eyeballs a digital platform, either company or

consumer created, attract the more advertisement revenue can also a plat-
form generate. Many individual consumers and users are creating their
own digital platforms such as YouTube or Twitter to generate advertise-
ment revenue as also indicated in the upper section of Fig. 11.4. The
amount of advertisement revenue generated is naturally determined by
how many times an individual’s or a company’s content shared and/or
mentioned within a post compared to the other alternatives in the market.
This is also conceptualized as “Share of Voice” (SOV), which indicates
how many individuals are talking about you, your brand, and/or company
on the digital platforms compared to others.
Either generating conversion or purchase, shareability is at the heart of
social networking and community management. Thus, why some content
is shared more than others needs to be investigated. In other words, the
question is why and how some content gets viral and spread easily all
around the digital world while others don’t.

e-WOM and Viral Marketing

WOM (word-of-mouth) is perhaps the oldest form of consumer
marketing communication tool and in fact existed much before the inven-
tion of advertising and other promotional tools. Pre-internet age, WOM
was face-to-face and predominantly shared among very close group of
people such as family and close friends. Sharing such product, brand infor-
mation and complaints, and feedback with only closely related individuals
is an alternative tool and form of rejecting company’s advertisement
messages. This was defined in Dichter’s famous WOM work as “cold
commercialization”37 of advertisement messages. Hence consumers who
want to share their own messages through their own communication tools
and channels can develop a WOM away from corporate eyes. This, even-
tually, created WOM conceptualization in traditional marketing theory.
However, in pre-internet era, WOM was mostly in a form of spoken
words. Thus, sometimes the meaning created in this traditional WOM
format could be changed over time by the time a WOM reaches other
members. Each receiver could change the meaning of WOM a little bit
in the process. Thus, a message could lose its meaning and originality in
the process in traditional WOM format as happens in childhood “tele-
phone game”. What you said in the beginning could always get another
meaning at the end of the telephone game. Each participants change the
230 S. U. KUCUK

words depending on their perception and at the end the message mostly
changed and out of message.
However, in today’s digital age, WOM can be shared with great
numbers of online community members as well as anybody in public
through digital media not only a few close group members, and origi-
nality of message content cannot be changed unintentionally as what is
shared is in a digital format can’t easily be changed in the process. One
other difference is WOM developed within online societies is not face-to-
face anymore as it could be various digital content formats such as text,
pictures, or even videos. This is a new form of WOM is called “e-WOM”.
And, it can have more impact on consumers than traditional advertise-
ments since e-WOMs can spread alarmingly fast within markets.38 Most
of the time, companies have a hard time keeping up with such e-WOM
spread to markets without their control as e-WOM could be alarmingly
harmful to the company and its brands.39 Viral marketing, in this context,
studies the process of developing techniques to create visible and influ-
ential WOM inside and outside the online community to shape and
influence market voice for your benefit. Or how a simple idea or a post
within a social network or community is developed, grown, and spread to
the whole market so that detecting and predicting a simple community
member’s post’s future behavior could be possible and manageable.40
Every post or event has some lifecycle in the social media as explained
in Fig. 11.5. From the beginning to developing to teaching climax
and then descending and disappearing, such events go through various
stages.41 The event or idea could be posted on a microblogging plat-
form and starts its voyager, and in the developing stage, the hotness of
the event could increase and attract more attention to an event/post.
Once it reaches climax, it can stay there for a while depending on hotness
of the event and subject, and then slowly descend with reducing posts,
likes, and shares and then disappears from the community’s or market’s
view.42 Although some could be short-lived and dies right after beginning
without getting any traction within the social network, so others could go
live through each stage during the time of its lifecycle. Some also reveal
multi-climax lifecycles as the event can rejuvenate some other members
or perhaps even can be realized by other communities in the same sphere
as pictured in Fig. 11.5b. Number of members’ likes, reshares, and posts
about the event eventually determine how long this process will continue
to impact the community as well as markets. But not every attempt at
 11 COMMUNITY 231

Fig.11.5 Lifecycle of an event/post in a community (Source Mu et al. [2021:

220])

Source 1 2 3 4

Fig.11.6 Community and e-WOM

viral marketing or e-WOM can achieve success, or even appear successful

if it does, as also pictured in Fig. 11.6.
As pictured in Fig. 11.6, the source or message initiator and the
numbers following indicate the individuals that are linked to each other in
a community. Not every message is shared with others and reaches the far
corner of the network, such as the fourth person highlighted red in the
upper right corner of Fig. 11.6. Some stop at the second person in the
network; sometimes, if the nature of the message is not deemed suitable
for the community’s goals it is not even passed on to another person.
232 S. U. KUCUK

However, if a message receiver (e.g., number 1 in Fig. 11.6) feels the

message is appropriate, and then s/he passes it to others, the message can
travel significant distances in the network. In other words, community
members can work as a filtering mechanism within the community and
affect the message dissemination process. Overall, the more the message
passes among the community members, the more powerful and impactful
the message or e-WOM can get as this indicates that the message has a
capacity to reach the far corners of your and even other online communi-
ties. This can be defined as “shareability” of message. But the question is
what makes such messages reach the far corners of the community or all
the community members and hence reaches high shareability while others
can’t? Or, why some events and posts go multi-climax lifecycles and stays
in members’ agenda for a long time while others disappear without even
getting any traction within community circles? The answer to these ques-
tions is multifaceted as shareability could be influenced by many factors
as explained below:

Source Credibility: of e-WOM can directly influence the effective-

ness of communication between the message
creator and receiver.43 Further, the impact of e-
WOM could be higher when the message or
e-WOM creator can be perceived as trustworthy
and credible.44 An e-WOM message or a post
can come from a trustworthy and knowledge-
able people could have a longer lifecycle as their
views and expertise touch the fundamentals and
the purpose of the community. Many members of
such communities give such leadership roles natu-
rally to these people who they respect and hence
connect to them by following their messages
and posts. Some community members don’t even
argue the credibility or correctness of the message
created by such a source and pass it to others
within the community because of their admiration
and trust in the source. In online communi-
ties, consumer members of the community could
be weighted more on their fellow members’
messages than marketer-generated messages. In
other words, community members could perceive
 11 COMMUNITY 233

e-WOM message positively and be adopted easily

if the source of e-WOM is seen as credible.45
Furthermore, the higher the credibility of e-
WOM message source, the more positive attitude
could members have about the brand used in e-
WOM.46 This, in turn, could affect members’
purchase intentions of the brand.47 Overall, if the
source is perceived as credible, trustworthy, and
knowledgeable, e-WOM message could travel to
far corners of the community circles and even
spread to other communities and hence all around
the digital world.

Strength of Ties: In the past, WOM mostly circulated among

family and close friends which indicates strong ties
among community members as well as acquain-
tances and strangers which points out weak ties
among members.48 WOM was more “gossip” like
features as people mostly share their experiences and
complaints with their strong ties with details as face-
to-face sharing of traditional WOM format provided
some privacy between spreader and receiver. Some
of such personal ties are defined as strong and some
others are weak ties. Granovetter (1973) defines the
strength of personal ties as “a combination of the
amount of time, the emotional intensity, the inti-
macy, and the reciprocal services which characterize
the tie (p. 1361)”. In this context, “strong ties”
are generally referred to close-knitted ties among
community members, and hence, the trust between
members is higher and paramount rather than weak
ties.49 On the other hand, “weak ties” indicates
loosely connected group such as acquaintances, or
some cases even strangers.50 The stronger the ties
between community members, the higher possibility
that WOM could pass through others and hence the
message spread all the sections of the community
quickly as there is a less emotional barriers between
234 S. U. KUCUK

these members. However, with the advent of social

media technology, weak ties also became almost as
important as strong ties in terms of shareability
performance of WOM. Weak ties can work like
a bridge that connects different communities and
networks while string ties have less bridging func-
tion as also explained by Granovetter: “no strong tie
is bridge”; hence, they connect major networks to
each other.51 In other words, weak ties take a major
role in the diffusion of the information in the form
of e-WOM in the digital markets52 as also pictured
in Fig. 11.7.

As indicated by the color codes in Fig. 11.7, hot colors such as red
and its tones indicate strong ties, while cold colors such as blue indi-
cate weaker ties within the online community. Each community has
both strong and weak ties. From the center (indicated with node #1),
which could be anybody else who starts the e-WOM, to outskirts of the
online community (node #5), the e-WOM might lose its strength as the
source first shares the message with the one close to him/herself. Each
community (community-1 and -2) has weak ties at the outskirts of the
community (#5) and those ties work like a bridge. And hence, e-WOM

Online Community-1 Online Community-2

3
2
2

1 4
1
2
WEAK TIE 3
5 5 2
Bridge
3
4

Fig. 11.7 Strong and weak ties

 11 COMMUNITY 235

transfers from one online community to another one through such a weak
tie function as a bridge.
As also indicated in Fig. 11.7, some consumers are more connected
with online communities (such as fans, loyal consumers) than some others
(such as followers or daily readers). Fans, who could be considered as
weak ties, are able, even delighted, to pass on information to large audi-
ences. Thus, fans have a higher shareability capabilities while they are
not stronger ties in the community. For example, in a recent interview,
Thomas Baekdal discusses the importance of fans in his calculations of
social network exposure as follows:

…one active fan is worth 445 people. And you need to reach 14,000
people to get one active fan. Which also means that only 56 active fans
can create just as much an exposure than a web site with 25,000 visitors.
(Sterne, 2010: 53)

This indicates that active fans leverage their connectivity to spread

e-WOM, perhaps creating even better e-value than the original web
content itself. Thus, one could argue that the weak ties are good for
building awareness within social networks and online communities which
in turn increases diffusion and hence brand awareness which is the
subject of e-WOM. On the other hand, strong ties could be a good
source for persuading members of networks and communities as well
as enhancing brand loyalty through verifying community values and
purposes.53 Overall, each tie has a different capacity and function within
online communities and hence they should be used accordingly.
Content: Some e-WOM messages are passed to the community
members because of the power of the content no matter who sent the
message or whether the source of the message is credible or not. In
other words, a powerful story and content might generate a high-level
of exposure to consumers, no matter who first initiated the e-WOM
(whether consumer or company). If the story has a lot to say, and the
story is told through a right picture or a video, e-WOM message could
spread fairly quickly and can even reach a bigger sector of the market. In
this context, the tone of the message content influences the community
members’ perception of e-WOM. Although e-WOM content that carries
upbeat positive stories can have higher shareability, the research showed
that both positive and negative e-WOM content can evoke high-arousal
emotions and hence they could easily be passed to other members.54
236 S. U. KUCUK

This, in turn, makes fake news and content easily leak into community
information-sharing circles because of the power of the content they carry.
Furthermore, research also revealed that e-WOM supported with visual
content and alliteration and repetitive rhetorical style has higher share-
ability among consumers.55 Social networks in which image and visual
sharing is dominant such as Instagram and YouTube, visual content plays
a significant role in consumer’s shareability decisions as 73% of social
media users want to see more entertaining videos.56 Many online social
networking sites provide technological conveniences on creating and
sharing various types of content. Although such flexibility triggers easy
creation and sharing of e-WOM message content in a faster way, it can
also create content complexity which eventually reduces consumer liking
and message shareability as also discussed partially in the Chapter 10.

Conclusion
Today’s online communities are where consumers share their ideas and
feelings to satisfy their social needs. This, in fact, makes many of commu-
nity members happy as this is a way to nourish our relationships and define
our identity. Thus, online communities are an indispensable part of any
digital marketing efforts that focus on consumers. In online communi-
ties and social networks, companies and consumers can always engage
any conversations anytime (24/7) and follow each other to changes and
trends in the markets. People fearlessly share their ideas and opinions,
and hence such communities empowered consumer or perhaps any indi-
vidual’s voice in an unprecedented way.57 In this context, it won’t be
wrong to say that companies are losing their voice power to consumers
in social networks and online communities as a cold commercialization
mentality in traditional marketing cannot survive in today’s digital world.
When Likeable content reaches online communities sharing circles,
they can create higher impacts in the markets as they have higher poten-
tial to get viral and spread all around the digital universe. The impact of
such shareability, in fact, could be equivalent to the impact of a super bowl
commercial spot in a traditional marketing sense. As the speed of informa-
tion spreading is much faster than any other marketing tools as we know
it negative e-WOM created in such communities can cause destructive
results for companies whose brands and brand identities are struggling in
the markets. Companies learn to listen and engage in online communities
and act in a timely manner to go ahead of some misrepresented stories
 11 COMMUNITY 237

and negative e-WOM. As it is well-represented by Sterne (2010: 130)

“You can’t control the conversation, but you can guide the conversation”.
Companies should understand that brands are formed with consumers in
today’s social media environments. Although initially created by compa-
nies, it is highly likely that companies would lose the control of their
branding and business messages in the digital world as a consumer have to
power to control WOM. Thus, companies need to develop some sort of
control mechanism to monitor such online communities and to develop
a balanced approach with consumers. In other words, instead of fighting
with some online communities, companies need to learn how to use what
such communities offer to improve their business to next level.
Finally, companies can also generate their own e-WOM campaign
in the digital world. Detecting potential communities early on and/or
develop new communities with consumers that can fit company’s goals
and plans could be key to reach a marketing success. In such cases, compa-
nies should also target their e-WOM to the people with high levels of
both connectivity and credibility in order to influence the crowds. Those
consumers can eventually open the door to new and valuable consumers
as well.58 Companies should also understand the meaning of weak and
strong ties and how they interact to develop a smooth roadmap for a
e-WOM to travel the digital universe for maximum impact. In addition,
companies should work on their messages carefully as the power of the
message is as important as the source or the person who spreads the
message as discussed in the content chapter. As a result, it would be fair to
say that companies need to learn to share their brands and contents with
consumers as online consumer communities are gaining more control in
market speech.

Notes
1. Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson (2013).
2. Muniz and O’guinn (2001: 412).
3. Mattessich and Monsey (2004: 56).
4. Hall (2001).
5. Kucuk (2020).
6. https://thestartup.substack.com/p/online-community visited on
1/11/22.
7. Hallissey v. America Online, Inc., C.A. No. 1:99–3785, Docket No. 1443
(S.D.N.Y. Apr. 15, 2002).
8. Godes and Mayzlin (2009), Trusov et al. (2009).
238 S. U. KUCUK

9. Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson (2013).

10. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/ visited
on 6/16/2022.
11. https://www.reportlinker.com/insight/smartphone-connection.html
visited on 12/9/21.
12. Dogan (2019).
13. Lieberman (2013).
14. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/us/politics/27voters.html
visited on 01/01/2022.
15. Bagozzi and Dholakia (2002).
16. Jang, et al. (2008).
17. Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson (2013).
18. Oestreicher-Singer and Zalmanson (2013).
19. Petrenko, et al. (2021).
20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQ_4604Xfg visited on 12/29/21.
21. Raïes, Mühlbacher, and Gavard-Perret (2015).
22. Bateman, Gray, and Butler (2011).
23. Hur, Ahn and Kim (2011).
24. Wang et al. (2019).
25. Jang, et al. (2008), Hur et al. (2011), Raïes et al. (2015).
26. Jang, et al. (2008).
27. Hur, Ahn and Kim (2011).
28. Gruen et al. (2006).
29. Wang et al. (2019).
30. Toffler (1980).
31. Kucuk (2020).
32. Fortunato (2010)..
33. Beukeboom et al. (2015), Kumar et al. (2016).
34. Mochon, et al. (2017).
35. Kumar, et al. (2016).
36. Das et al. (2021).
37. Dichter (1966).
38. Sterne (2010).
39. Kucuk (2020).
40. Mu, et al. (2021).
41. Mu, et al. (2021).
42. Mu, et al. (2021).
43. Hovland and Weiss (1951).
44. Bansal and Voyer (2000), Bart, et al. (2005).
45. Chang and Wu (2014), Reyes-Menendez et al. (2019), Ismagilova et al.
(2020).
46. Wu and Wang (2011).
47. Ismagilova, et al. (2020).
 11 COMMUNITY 239

48. Duhan et al. (1997).

49. Kucuk (2020).
50. O’Reilly and Marx (2011).
51. Granovetter (1973).
52. Kucuk (2020).
53. Kucuk (2020).
54. Berge and Milkman (2012).
55. Villarroel Ordenes, et al. (2019).
56. https://invideo.io/blog/video-marketing-statistics/ visited on 1/11/22.
57. Kucuk (2020).
58. Kucuk (2011.

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 CHAPTER 12

Commitment

Although trust and commitment are pre-requirements of any relationship,

they were not a big problem for companies unless there was a scan-
dalous incident that can lead to public outrage and protest in traditional
marketing world. Consumers continue to buy their favorite products and
brands and in fact can even tolerate some level of unpleasant service expe-
riences or unprofessional business interactions. Thus, many consumers
felt alienated in their struggle with giant corporations in the traditional
marketing environments,1 but it was almost impossible to find like-
minded consumers struggling with the same problems in the traditional
marketing environments. Thus, the relationship between consumers and
companies was like a broken marriage in which both sides pushed their
limits to continue the relationship by somewhat lowering their expecta-
tions in the traditional format. There is no commitment and love left
as the situation mandates them to stay in course. With the invention of
the Internet, everything went so clear for everybody that the relationship
between consumers and companies is very troubling, lack of commitment
and trust2 . This, eventually, made companies realize that they need to
establish credibility and trustworthy communication channels with their
consumers.
Considering business as a continuous patronage and relationship devel-
opment process with consumers, the old one-time-only sale opportu-
nity mentality simply doesn’t work in the digital world. The internet

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 243

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_12
244 S. U. KUCUK

is a perfect medium for relationship building and hence management

of continuous company-to-consumer or consumer-to-company relation-
ships. Although “connectivity” as one of the major components of 4Cs,
by design is a communication starter or one-time-only contact ability, no
discrete relationship can provide future success in the digital universe.
And more than one contact requires trust and commitment, especially in
the digital world as we continue to digitize almost every aspect of our
lives. Interestingly, such trust and commitment are not only required for
only healthy consumer-to-company relationships but also for consumer-
to-consumer relationship. With the advent of social network, nowadays
credibility of consumer messages is also jeopardized because information
pollution and unfounded claims started to storm the digital world and
mislead many consumers.3 Clearly, trust and credibility of a person or
an entity such as a corporation or any message are at stake. Thus, the
new role of trust and hence commitment, as another element of 4Cs, in
today’s digital world needs to be discussed in detail.

Defining Commitment and Credibility

Traditionally, companies have a better chance to survive with one-time
only contact or sales experience in traditional marketing world, but that
is no longer the case in the digital marketing world. In other words, if
traditional marketing is about one-night date out, digital marketing is
about going out for the purpose of a long-term relationship or marriage
with consumers. This, in turn, requires “commitment” and “trustworthi-
ness” in a relationship in the digital world. Interestingly enough, in the
case of separation or divorce with consumers, fake content and stories are
dispersed just to hurt the other side by hiding behind the trustworthy
relationships built over the years with followers and close social networks.
Any community, including online consumer communities, trusting a
community member is key. Trust and committed relationship make the
community. If community members don’t trust each other and hence
can’t get into a committed relationship, community couldn’t be existed
at the first place. Thus, every story or content shared within a commu-
nity could be assumed as close to the truth. In fact, research revealed that
a communicators’ credibility and trustworthiness could be more impor-
tant than his/her expertise when communicator is trying to influence the
receiver’s beliefs.4
 12 COMMITMENT 245

However, the trustworthiness of a content received from outside the

community could be in jeopardy and hence such content goes through a
more skeptical review process by community members. The commitment
to other members makes content generated within the community more
acceptable, which positively influences members’ content consumption.
Companies try to find a trustworthy consumer within an online commu-
nity so that they can sneak their content into the consumer communities.
Some companies bribe consumers for that purpose,5 this, in turn, influ-
ences the relationship quality and trustworthiness within and outside
consumer communities. Hence, credibility of the content plays a signif-
icant role in building a committed relationship with consumers either
within or outside of online communities. Because some content can be
generated within consumer community by members and shared with
other communities and markets, “content”, as another 4C element, has
perhaps more significance than community as also pictured in Fig. 12.1.
In traditional marketing world, commitment generally works from
company-to-consumers. This is pictured with direct dark lines from
company-to-consumer in Fig. 12.2. The company is the one that commits
to provide the best products/services with the right message at the
best value at the right place and time in the traditional market formats.
Companies’ race for consumer committed to build long-standing busi-
ness relationship with consumers, and that’s not always guaranteed as
companies can’t always fulfill their commitments also indicated with
dotted lines (which indicates commitment from consumer-to-company)
in Fig. 12.2. This, in turn, increased the importance of marketing mix
(or 4Ps) planning and coordination in traditional marketing practices.

C
o
m
m
i
CONNECTIVITY Content Community
t
m
e
n
t

Fig. 12.1 The role of commitment in 4Cs

246 S. U. KUCUK

However, increasing connectivity with companies and consumers has

made meeting and doing business with other companies and strangers
easy6 and complicated at the same time. Thus, company-to-consumer
commitment is under great pressure with the increasing ease of doing
business/purchase from alternatives in the digital markets. As discussed
earlier, consumers use other consumers as an information source in post-
purchase evaluation stages with the help of social networks and online
consumer communities. Now, first time in business history, consumers’
commitment to other consumers (consumer-to-consumer commitment)
is also playing a significant role in market relationships since consumers
have also started to act like an alternative market agent.7 In short, while
the commitment was traditionally seen as company-oriented concept in
the old days, it could not only be the companies’ responsibility anymore
but also consumers’ responsibility in the digital world. Similarly, in today’s
digital world, not only commitment to company has business value but
also committed relationship with other fellow consumers. Such consumer-
to-consumer commitment link is so strong in many online communities
that commitment to company has now lessen its power and importance
in the digital world.
Commitment cannot easily be established in the digital world. The
first contact is the door opener and hence companies should provide
the best presentation to their consumers through email marketing or
search engine marketing tools. The second step is to development
of trust-building business operations by perhaps providing money-back
guarantees, sharing previous company accomplishments, and through
one-on-one direct consumer communications with personalized features,
etc. But the list is not limited as we will discuss in this section. If the
company can go through these steps successfully, then trust could be
the precursor of commitment.8 In other words, without trust, commit-
ment cannot be established. And, once a committed relationship was built
with consumers, the doors would be wide open for consumer–company
patronage and partnership in the long run especially in the digital world.9
In short, the chains of relationships generally work in the following way:

(1) Connectivity → (2) Trust → (3) Commitment

The first step is “connecting with consumers” as broadly discussed

in the previous “Connectivity” chapter. This indicates the company’s
or consumer communicator’s (e.g., consumer blogger, influencer, etc.)
 12 COMMITMENT 247

Company-to-Consumer Commitment

Traditional Consumer
Company
Marketing

Company-to-Consumer Commitment

Consumer-to-Consumer Commitment
Digital Company Consumer
Marketing

Consumer

Fig. 12.2 Commitment in traditional and digital marketing

first contact with receiver/s or an audience. However, the following

steps, trust, and commitment, in building a long-lasting relationship and
perhaps partnership in the digital world is the focus of this chapter.

Trust
Trust is one of the most important founding blocks of any relationship.
As once Arthur Schopenhauer famously said; “whoever violates trust once
loses forever”. Thus, without trust, we cannot mention a relationship. The
existence of a relationship and hence the effectiveness of any communi-
cation process is directly dependent on trustworthy interactions. In fact,
trust can be seen as a social glue that connects parties to each other and
builds unity in many social settings as rightfully pointed out by Rotter
(1967: 651) as follows: “One of the most salient factors in effectiveness of
our present complex social organization is the willingness of one or more
248 S. U. KUCUK

individuals in a social unit to trust others. The efficiency, adjustment and

even survival of any social group depends upon the presence and absence
of such trust ”. In fact, in macro-marketing level, markets with mutually
trustworthy relationships and social consensus can develop better market
immunity to detect and eliminate harmful business and consumer prac-
tices in order to prevent early market entropy.10 In this context, the
absence of trustworthy relationship environment within any social systems
can eventually bring the markets to the end as parties cannot go beyond
connecting each other and can’t build a committed relationship to create
exchange mechanisms, which is the very nature of internet as a major
relationship building socio-economic medium.
In a simple online purchase process, consumers do not involve real-
time exchange of goods and money.11 In order to exchange happen,
consumer’s personal information and financial information should be
shared with online merchant beforehand unlike traditional marketing.
Such information can also stay with online sellers’ database even after
purchase is complete. This was not the case in traditional marketing
exchange processes as consumers were most of the time out of the
purchase loops once consumer pay and leave the retail store. On the
other hand, consumers most precious information still available for a
merchant to be used later times in the digital markets. Most of the
time, consumers are not fully aware of which kind of information is
collected about themselves and their shopping behaviors. This, in turn,
increases information asymmetry between companies and consumers, and
hence leaves consumers in the dark which increases the unpredictability
of the company behaviors. Furthermore, consumers can’t be able to test
many products/services simultaneously in a digital shopping process and
hence this also creates some uncertainty and risks for consumers in some
cases. Although it is not clear whether online or offline shopping experi-
ences create untrustworthy shopping experiences, the elements that define
trustworthy relationship has been changed in the digital world as will be
explained below.
With the staggering amount of information about products/services
flowing into the digital markets every day, many consumers also feel
confused and overwhelmed with such information available for them. This
leads to information overload as consumers need to spend more cognitive
efforts to digest all the market information regarding the product/service
they are planning to purchase. It is also getting very difficult to verify the
credibility of such information which, in turn, rise consumer skepticism
 12 COMMITMENT 249

on market information. Because of the internet’s democratic architec-

ture, every individual can voice their opinions with the same footing
with companies. Anyone can easily disseminate questionable informa-
tion without providing proof or hence sources of information, and this
increases confusion in markets. Eventually, the digital markets filled with
unverified information that is seen as confusing, false, misleading, or at
least not up to date. Now, it is harder than ever to determine what to
and who to believe in digital markets. This, eventually, increases uncer-
tainty and hence consumers’ vulnerability in the digital markets. Thus,
consumers need more trustworthy information and relationships with
the content generators as rightfully pointed out by Lewis and Weigert
(1985: 462): “Trust begins where knowledge ends ”. Similarly, uncertainty
can easily be overcoming within a trustworthy relationship as trust can
function like an uncertainty reducer12 or alternatively risk reducer13 as
Mayer et al. (1995: 711) “the need for trust only arises in a risky situa-
tion”. Under these circumstances, it won’t be wrong to emphasize that
having an ability to develop trustworthy market relationships is becoming
the currency in the digital market.14
Trust also indicates the need for dependence to the other side espe-
cially in uncertain times.15 In today’s highly dynamically changing digital
environments, consumers’ dependence on companies to do the right
thing or dependence on other consumers’ candid opinions about prod-
ucts/services shared in the digital spaces point out that trust is needed for
satisfactory market transactions. In this context, consumer trust can also
be used as an indicator of consumer power since consumer “distrust”
can also be used as a source of power for consumers.16 In other words,
consumer’s dependence on other sides and hence trust also indicates
whether a consumer has power over the other side. That, the consumer
can influence and, in some circumstances, control the other side’s behav-
iors. If there is less dependence needed on the other side, then the party
has power over the other.17 As pictured in Fig. 12.3, if consumer influ-
ence on the company is high, then the consumer is less dependent on the
company as also indicated at the point of A in Fig. 12.3. On the other
hand, if the consumer feels highly dependent on the company and has
less control and influence on the company, there is a need for trust as also
indicated in point B in Fig. 12.3. Point C indicates the optimum level of
power and trust required between the consumer and company to reach
a balanced and beneficial market relationship. In other words, a more
250 S. U. KUCUK

Consumer Control
over Company/consumer

A D

Consumer Interdependence
O
with Company/consumer

Fig. 12.3 Consumer power and trust

balanced consumer power–trust relationship can be reached anywhere

along the OD line as pictured in Fig. 12.3.18
We, human beings, determine the trustworthiness of others by devel-
oping generalized expectations about them over time in an “interper-
sonal” relationship format.19 This was also the major way of building
trust with consumers in traditional marketing environments. However,
in today’s computer-mediated digital environments, trustworthy relation-
ship is narrowed down to “impersonal” communication and relationship
building formats through a medium: the Internet.20 Thus, consumer’s
general belief about the trustworthiness of the internet as a shopping
medium is needed to be investigated in order to better understand trust
in the digital world.21 In this context, trust in company in general and
its digital presence needs to be discussed separately for both digital and
brick-and-mortar companies.

Trust in Company
Trust in company or an online vendor plays a significant role in consumer
purchase decisions.22 Trust in company can generally be defined on the
perspective of how consumers see the company as an institution (defined
as “institutional trust”23 ) and its general purpose and integrity.24 In the
digital world, it is found that an online store’s reputation,25 consumers’
 12 COMMITMENT 251

familiarity to the online company,26 and structural assurances27 that

were given to consumers by the online company positively influence
consumers’ trust in company in the digital world. Thus, from consumer
trust point of view, trust in company covers company’s willingness
and ability to protect consumer’s rights, to answer consumer inquiries
appropriately, to introduce unbiased and updated product/service infor-
mation and help consumers to make conscious product/service choices;
to provide delivery and fair return guarantees; and finally, to provide
the company’s ethical codes without using confusing terms.28 On the
other hand, consumers might not see the company as trustworthy if
consumers perceive the company’s website and its digital operations are
not trustworthy.

Trust in Website
Although face-to-face marketing communications played significant role
in traditional marketing world, majority of communication with the
company is through computer displays or smartphone screens. The
company’s digital look, website online content, and how operationalizes
its business model in the digital format directly influences consumers’
perspective of online company. In other words, trust in company can be
directly associated with the company’s digital presence in the online plat-
form through its own website content and operations.29 If consumers
find the company’s website and shopping processes’ convenience, ease
of use, and usefulness, this can also positively impact consumers’ trust
in company.30 Clearly, website design, algorithms, and user experience
have potential to influence consumer trust. One more important trust
element in consumer interaction with company’s website is transac-
tion security. In digital environments, consumers can directly control
security of their transactions on their side, but they can’t in the
system of other parties’ transactions.31 This was not an issue in tradi-
tional marketing environments as parties were always present during
the transaction between parties. Thus, consumers’ feelings of website
transaction security,32 privacy, and protection of personal information33
are found to influence consumer website trustworthiness and hence
overall consumer’s feelings about the online company. In addition to
transaction security, providing unbiased, up-to-date information about
product/service specification including prices, product availability, and
comparative information with competitors within in company’s digital
252 S. U. KUCUK

content can enhance consumer trust.34 Finally, research showed that

providing links to online consumer communities for support (defined as
“social presence”) increases consumer trust in website.35 In other words,
enabling consumers to connect with other like-minded consumers as
well as company’s sales representative for immediate help might reduce
the risks and uncertainty consumers may have felt during the shopping
process. However, it must be emphasized that other consumers in online
communities might not share the same ground with companies in every
issue, and hence such community help cannot be guaranteed all the time.
In fact, some of the consumers share negative views about the company
whether it’s true or not. Thus, trust in other consumers’ views should
also be investigated as online communities started to play role in shaping
other consumers’ trust and shopping decisions.

Trust in Other Consumers/Sources

In traditional marketing environments, consumers cannot get direct
advice or suggestions from other like-minded consumers or objective
sources in real time. Consumers could, however, do their homework
beforehand, but the quality and amount of information were limited
compared to digital markets. In this context, consumers’ trust in other
fellow consumers’ views can play an important role than marketer or
company-generated content and information in the digital world.36
Perceived quality of interaction with other consumers could be more satis-
factory as such consumers could share more comprehensive, honest, accu-
rate, and timely information about the company with others following
their comments,37 and that can be perceived as trustworthy as consumers
who are searching more information could see themselves with the same
footing with the consumers who post his/her views in the digital plat-
form. On the other hand, some of the consumers post negative and in
fact insulting comments about the company’s product/services which
worries many companies as they know very well that other like-minded
consumers’ views could be perceived more trustworthy. This, eventu-
ally, trigger WOM wars between consumer advocates and companies. In
order to counter such negative consumer WOM, companies started to
hire other consumers with bribes like gifts and monetary prizes to push
their agenda, in fact, change the truth if it contradicts with their views. Or
alternatively, hire “influencers” to change consumers’ beliefs and behav-
iors. Although such consumer and influencer behaviors are tried to be
 12 COMMITMENT 253

regulated by FTC and other legal organizations that forces influencers

to declare what they were paid (either as a direct payment or gifts), the
success of such regulations is still debatable.38 Research also showed that
when influencers or consumers disclose such payments, consumers audi-
ences’ perceptions of trustworthiness and engagement of posts increase.39
However, in some cases, companies even use bots to generate automated
WOM so that they can change the consumer rhetoric that doesn’t collab-
orate with company’s message and views.40 This, in turn, accelerates the
dissemination of biased and fake information into the consumer markets
and hence hurt consumers’ trust to other consumers’ views. Clearly, either
ordinary consumers or influencers or bots, dissemination of misleading,
biased, and fake information are taking markets by storm, hence this issue
needs to be investigated further.
Majority of such rumors and false information are created and spread
today in social media environments. Consumers, most of the time, don’t
even check the source of the misleading content they receive, and they
either like or share it with their close-knitted networks. Majority of
consumers don’t even bother to check the source of information they
receive and hence veracity of information is unknown or unclear.41 Alter-
natively, consumers rely on the people in their social networks and falsely
assume that the person who shares the misinformation knew the sources
or verify the veracity of the information.42 The information source could
be another consumer or a company (e.g., competitors of the brand
used by the receiver consumers) or not even a person perhaps a bot.
Making the matters worse, the research also revealed that false informa-
tion diffuses farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in
the digital world as false information is 70% more likely shared than the
truth.43 In other words, false information reaches more people in a short
time than true information. This high virality of false information even-
tually pollutes our information channels and makes us wrong decisions
which lead to dissatisfaction with products and services. Thus, the ques-
tion is “why are we, as consumers, attracted by fake and false information
and consume them more?”.
Social networking technologies make information sharing so easy and
rapid that a vast amount of information flows in markets every day in the
digital world. We can’t read and process every bit of information in the
digital world. We anatomically can process only a limited amount of infor-
mation and for the rest, we follow others’ lead and like or dislike things
254 S. U. KUCUK

automatically based on our trust to the people who share such informa-
tion (aka “social conformity”). Thus, many times we blindly follow others
as our capacity to follow the truth is limited. As diagnosed very well by
Nobel Prize winner Herbert A. Simon that we are actually consuming the
information that is in others’ attention span, not in our own.44 This, in
turn, accelerates the escape from the truth as we, human beings, are stuck
with others’ truths not our own by eliminating our options unconsciously.
Even though we try our best to share verified, true, and hence high-
quality information with others, our inability to process mass amount of
information also leads us to share fake and false information.45 Thus, most
of the time we spread fake and untrue information unconsciously and we
can easily infect even our closest friends and family even though we don’t
have bad intentions. These kinds of social herding behaviors are associated
with the “behavior of schooling fish and flocking birds ” (Menczer & Hills,
2020: 58). This eventually reduces the quality of market information in
digital markets. As a result, one stream of research revealed that infor-
mation overload is one of the major reasons why fake and false become
viral.46 As indicated in Fig. 12.4., the more people we are connected the
more likely we share potentially fake and false information with others.
Even sometimes when we are passing the true information with others,
such information can be changed by other recipients (aka “social diffu-
sion”). This resembles the whispers or telephone game kids play. You

Amount of
Information

Bots

Fakeness of
Quality of shared
Information
Information

Number of
Memes/Individuals

Fig. 12.4 Consumer fake information sharing and bots

 12 COMMITMENT 255

whisper something to the ears of your friend next to you, and what you
said to your friend will eventually be changed after it passes five to ten
people, and you will realize that totally new things came out at end of
the line. The more people in your information loop lined up, the more
variety of different other than what you said could come out at the end of
the line, especially by the ones who might have extreme views about the
matter. Thus, the truth is changed unintentionally in the process. Inter-
estingly, research revealed that such social diffusion behaviors can make
negative information become viral and in fact make some recipients more
resistant to updating as well as to change such beliefs.47 On top of all,
automated robots constantly pumping unfound and unverified informa-
tion into the consumption markets, the situation deteriorated significantly
for consumers who are seeking truthful and real information about prod-
ucts and corporations. In one account, 15 percent of all the active Twitter
accounts are bots that act like normal human beings in the digital plat-
forms,48 and this, in turn, accelerates the mass amount of fake and false
information diffusion into markets in a split of seconds as also pictured in
Fig. 12.4.
Clearly, from major corporate CEOs to ordinary citizens, from compa-
nies to consumers, in every sector of our society are all struggling with
fake and false information and trying to find a way out of this untrust-
worthy market environment.49 If such falsehood spread to society and
to the whole market, this could bring chaos and eventually collapse the
markets.50 Under these circumstances, it is difficult for companies to
go further and establish a committed and long-term relationship with
consumers. In fact, it is even harder for consumers themselves to find
committed communications and relationships with other like-minded
consumers and be part of any sort of online communities for support.
Therefore, commitment as a concept needs to be investigated in order to
understand changing consumer behaviors in the digital world.

Commitment
Although some scholars used trust and commitment interchangeably,51
trust, in general, is seen as a building block of a committed relation-
ship with parties, not necessarily a direct equivalence of commitment.52
Similarly, although trust can be used as an indicator of vulnerability and
hence a high-level of dependence on someone, commitment, as a concept,
indicates already established trustworthy interaction and strong belief in
256 S. U. KUCUK

continuous relationship with the trusted party. In other words, commit-

ment starts after 100% trust is established as trust is once violated, there
will be no relationship between parties. In this context, trust can be
seen as a precondition of commitment as it improves the relationship
quality between parties and even willingness of parties to enter risky
exchanges. Thus, “commitment represents the highest stage of relational
bonding ” (Dwyer et al., 1987: 23) where trust plays a crucial first step.
Although trust can fluctuate, commitment doesn’t change too much once
it is established as each party is ready to sacrifice for the other’s well-
being.53 Eventually, while commitment brings predictability to consumer
behaviors, trust brings credibility to consumer–company relationship.
In this context, commitment is the major ingredient of trustworthy
long-term relationship and hence indicates a willingness to maintain a
relationship in longer periods.54 Commitment can be defined as a set of
values and rules shared by both company and consumers which eventu-
ally sustain mutually beneficial company-to-consumer relationship.55 In
this context, in a committed relationship you assume both sides value
the relationship and hence it is not a one-time-only interaction. Thus,
commitment can be seen as a pledge for the continuity of the relation-
ships56 and an indicator of readiness to sacrifice for the welfare of the
trusted partner57 (e.g., rejecting even the most tempting deals that come
from competitors.58 ) There is already a strong attachment and perhaps
loyalty to each other in commitment as parties don’t easily sway to other
attractive alternatives.59 In a fully committed relationship with compa-
nies, consumers don’t spend too much cognitive effort to reach a final
decision as they might trust the service/product provider fully. For highly
committed consumers, decision-making processes are almost like an auto-
matic and it doesn’t require too much cognitive effort as they are sure
what they will get at the end. Thus, building a committed relationship
with consumers is one of the solutions for the companies who want to
get ahead of distracting and confusing information flows and/or compet-
itive deals that aimed at stealing business from the company in the digital
world. Such highly committed consumers would sweep the false and
misleading information with their hands to a side, and don’t give too
much credit to the most attractive deals proposed by the competitors.
However, it is getting harder to reach a committed relationship
with consumers as a result of the Internet revolution. Company-to-
consumer communication and relationships are more personalized and
hence consumer commitment has gained more importance as discussed
 12 COMMITMENT 257

initially in B2B literature in the past.60 With the advent of personal

communication technologies and social media technologies, it is easier
to communicate with consumers as companies did in B2B markets. In
other words, such changes deeply transformed the marketing commu-
nication structures both in company-to-consumer as well as consumer-
to-consumer communications in the digital platforms.61 Thus, consumer
commitment needs more company and consumer attention in the digital
markets now than ever.
As discussed earlier, “lack of information” increases consumers’ uncer-
tainty and vulnerabilities as well as reduces trust to the company
and brand in a shopping process. However, in the commitment level,
consumer has already had enough knowledge and has already been
passed the trust barriers in a relationship with the company. Thus, addi-
tional information gained in a committed relationship can’t do much but
perhaps help to validate the relationship with consumers for the relation-
ship continuity and consistency. In commitment, there is less vulnerability
and more valuation to relationship and hence belief in continuous
patronage with the other side. It would be right to say that there is less
need for new information and knowledge in commitment than trust.62
However, with the increasing numbers of alternatives flowing into digital
markets every day, consumer commitments to companies, brands, and
other consumers’ messages are weakening in the digital environments
since there are fewer entry barriers for every size and type of business
into digital markets. In other words, consumer commitment levels could
stay strong as long as there are limited numbers of unattractive alternatives
available in the markets,63 and the internet is certainly not creating market
platforms where consumers can stay committed to companies, brands,
and other consumers. Research also revealed that consumers’ resistance
to alternatives could still be strong at the higher consumer commitment
levels,64 hence the high level of consumer commitments can safeguard
consumers in this highly dynamic and some points hostile digital market
environments. Thus, the question is how to reach high consumer commit-
ment levels in the digital markets so that companies and consumers can
keep their audience with them all the time. This, eventually, requires a
deep understanding of consumer commitment in the digital markets.
Commitment could be out of reach, when there is a high economic,
social, or emotional value in an exchange process (called “input”), and
willingness of parties for continued emotional or monetary investment in
a relationship (called “durability”), as well as effort to eliminate any of
258 S. U. KUCUK

the inconsistencies in the relationship that prevent parties to reconnect

(called “consistency”).65 In the digital markets, input could be shopping
for a product/service, or a funny video content posted on your social
network, or a friendly note/advice/suggestion coming from a friend who
hasn’t heard from a long time. Durability and consistency are mostly easy
to reach in social networking sites and online communities as you can
keep in touch with your close friends and brands you like. Thus, there are
tools to build committed relationships with various types of audiences in
the digital markets as well.
Commitment is also discussed in two major components: “affective”
commitment and “continuance” commitment.66 “Affective commit-
ment” (AC) indicates consumers’ emotional attachment with the
company, “continuance commitment” (CC) discusses consumer commit-
ment to the company based on costs-benefit calculations (e.g., switching
costs; dependence based on lack of choice).67 Although consumers gener-
ally have a genuine and strong desire to stay with the company in affective
commitment, consumers might stay with the company because of the
benefits they can get from the company even though they don’t neces-
sarily want to stay with the company in the continuance commitment.68
These two types of consumer commitments have different functions and
are not equally beneficial for the company/brand.69 Thus, they should
be discussed and conceptualized from separate perspectives for the digital
markets as follows:

Affective vs Continuance Digital Commitment

Affective commitment indicates consumer’s emotional attachment to
company/brand in the digital markets. Consumers feel comfortable with
the company/brand and in fact advocate them as they don’t feel entrap-
ment like in the continuance commitment.70 In this context, some
scholars use affective commitment as a synonym of “identity commit-
ment”71 as such consumer advocates openly express their commitment to
company/brand in various platforms without hesitation, and in fact act
as the company’s advocates in various consumption platforms. Further-
more, research also showed that consumer citizenship and advocacy can
directly be affected by affective commitment.72 Similarly, the consumer
can feel more committed to the companies who have clear social respon-
sibility engagement that is reflected in their brand identifications73 and
 12 COMMITMENT 259

hence brand identities. These kinds of higher-level feelings are the major
sources of affective commitment.
For these highly committed consumers, continuance commitment is
just a tool for satisfaction and hence doesn’t carry too much of a higher
purpose like in affective commitment. In other words, consumer trust
and commitment are deeply embedded in these consumers rather than
only satisfaction focused on a simple transitionary interaction.74 Because
of these reasons, some scholars also call continuance commitment “calcu-
lative commitment” as there is a more calculated consumer cost/benefit
analysis at the core of this type of commitment.75 In this context, affec-
tive commitment has always a deeper impact and hence it can generate
higher-level consumer retention, advocacy, and loyalty than continuance
commitment since continuance commitment negatively is affected by
consumer advocacy.76 As pictured in Fig. 12.5. consumer advocacy and
loyalty move in opposite directions after a while even though they started
at a similar level of trust. Although companies continue to implement
continuance commitment tools (such as coupons, membership deals,
etc.), the impact of such commitment tools on affective commitment is
generally limited.77 Highly committed consumers perceive such contin-
uance commitment tools might not see as a reward, rather they see
it as the company’s natural responsibility. In this context, it could be
right to indicate that continuance commitment represents a more utili-
tarian perspective rather than an ultimate unification or fully committed
relationship with the company.
Similarly, as also pictured with arrows in the causal model repre-
sentation on the top of Fig. 12.5 (e.g., Trust → AC), continuance
commitment (CC) could work like a mediator to reach an ultimate
level of affective consumer commitment (AC). In other words, contin-
uance commitment has lower-level purposes and feeds affective consumer
commitment by creating an alternative route to affective commitment.78
Similarly, trust also influences affective consumer commitment since
it is a major emotional relationship building mechanism in consumer
commitment79 as also discussed in the previous section. This, in turn,
is another reason why affective commitment reaches exponentially higher
commitment levels in the graph when the company does everything right.
In today’s digital platforms, commitment could be influenced by
various factors similar to physical platforms. For example, some of the
content and information introduced on the company website could
require membership fees of consumers or approval of community
260 S. U. KUCUK

Trust AC

CC
Consumer Advocacy

Affective Commitment (AC)

Baseline TRUST

Continuance Commitment (CC)

Commitment

Fig. 12.5 Affective and continuance commitment

members in an online community setting. Because such interaction is

purely transactional, this kind of interaction could easily be associated with
continuance commitment in the digital world. Potential new members
could go through some form of loose interrogation of community
members or join the community with a referral to become a member
so that they can access the related content and information in the social
media networks. This, in turn, could be interpreted as a continuance
commitment perspective as potential members cognitively lock-in the
online society’s benefits. Memberships could open to the door to some
exclusive content, information, and services generated by the community
members. Such online communities are built based on purely trans-
actional purposes and hence loyalty to a company or a brand could
be secondary than the direct benefits a consumer could get from the
company/brand. As discussed in the literature, continuance commitment
can directly be impacted such transaction frequencies,80 and this could
reveal itself with frequent visits to the company’s website and consumer
conversion rates in the digital platforms. In continuance commitment,
consumers could still be critical to the economic benefits they can get
from the company and hence their commitment to the company and
brand could be fragile when attractive substitutes are available in the
market.81 In this respect, the efforts that focus on building more transac-
tional interactions with consumers can eventually encourage them to act
with more utilitarian motives rather than strong emotional attachment in
 12 COMMITMENT 261

the digital world. This, in turn, could be defined as “digital continuance

commitment” in the context of this discussion.
On the other hand, highly committed consumers generally have affec-
tive commitment since they have higher callings and hence resist the
best deal coming from competitors and stay with their company/brand.
Affective consumer commitment requires a more direct relationship with
consumers and hence it is highly dependent on personalized or one-
on-one relationship building efforts. Interactive website content that
empowers consumers and hence enhances consumers satisfaction as
well as commitment to company.82 Consumers’ perception of informa-
tion quality and interface quality with the website can also influence
consumer’s commitment to company website,83 which could indicate
the consumer’s commitment to the company. This is generally not
the case for static websites in which consumers search for information,
product, or services through a list that doesn’t provide any personalized
and interactive tools.84 Furthermore, previous consumer commitment
literature indicated the importance of one-on-one and face-to-face rela-
tionship building efforts to reach effective commitment.85 In this context,
screen-to-person interaction in the digital platforms leaves less availability
of face-to-face interaction options with consumers, and hence affective
commitment could not as easily be reached as in the physical world since
the website technology could not necessarily enhance consumers’ trust
and commitment in the digital platforms.86 In other words, it is easier
to raise emotions and control people’s feelings in a person-to-person
communication rather than machine-to-person either the person inter-
acting with a computer or smartphone screen. This, in turn, indicates the
consequential role a website content could play role in building affec-
tive commitment with consumers in the digital world. In this context,
having website content that provides smooth interactions, and focuses on
building good relationship with consumers/visitors with effective support
systems would be the first step toward building affective commitment.
Research revealed that showing empathy, and affection and providing
socio-emotional support to consumer problems.87 In this context,
listening consumers and paying attention to their problems with a posi-
tive attitude and approach could raise consumers’ affective commitments
toward the company in the digital platforms as some consumers feel
left behind and not provided enough help in this dynamically complex
world. Thus, the termination of a relationship with consumer when it
is needed negatively impact consumer commitment.88 Clearly, digital
262 S. U. KUCUK

content used while delivering quality service could directly influence

consumer’s affective commitment and hence loyalty.89 In other words,
good quality of relationship with consumers in high commitment levels
can be reached through mediating effects of digital trust measures such
as interface quality, security perception, and site awareness90 and hence
satisfaction with the company’s website.91 Thus, the more consumers
invest in a relationship with the company/brand’s website, the deeper
the impact could be on consumer commitment toward such websites
as well.92 Furthermore, in the event of consumer relationship termina-
tion, the consumer would need to deal with the emotional hassle of
finding another trustworthy digital platform/company to initiate a rela-
tionship and hence uploading various forms of personal info into new
company’s or platform’s system. In this respect, digital affective commit-
ment is highly related to reaching good quality of relationship with
consumers through interactive website content development processes
which specifically focus on providing emotional support to consumers in
every stage of a shopping process. In today’s digital markets, social media
fan sites and online community platforms provide emotional support.
Thus, consumers can not only develop affective commitment through
company’s website but also collaborating and interacting with other like-
minded fellow consumers in online communities. Such online community
platforms could be built and run by the company itself or consumer
advocates, and hence controlling affective consumer commitment could
be a major challenge for companies. Most of the commitment chal-
lenges come from consumer communities with negative feelings about the
company and brand.93 Some of the negativity also comes from company’s
stand on social issues and how much company invests to fix such prob-
lems. Company’s commitment to solve various social responsibility issues
such as environmental and political problems could directly influence
consumers’ affective commitment levels.94 In this context, encouraging
discussions about how to fix such social problems in online communi-
ties can help companies to boost consumer affective commitment while
enhancing consumer–brand relationship and identity.
As a result, it would be fair to say that although content could be
seen as a building block of both continuance and affective commit-
ment, community would be the focus of affective commitment-building
strategies in the digital world.
 12 COMMITMENT 263

Conclusion
From a marketing point of view, a high level of commitment and
credibility is required to reduce future uncertainties and risks that
consumers may perceive in the digital markets. Without consumer trust
and commitment, money and effort spent on connectivity, content, and
community would be wasted. Some of today’s tech-savvy consumers
and other third-party actors have started to abuse the Internet’s demo-
cratic structure, illegally downloading many digital products, hacking
into company/consumer websites,95 stealing consumer identities,96 and
spreading fake, unfounded, and unethical information.97 Clearly, digital
platforms are also very suitable for manipulative and corruptive behav-
iors as we witnessed last decade. Under this circumstance, markets can
easily poison itself with such corrupt behaviors, and this would bring the
digital market economies to an end.98 Therefore, understanding the role
of “commitment” in digital market relationships has paramount impor-
tance in both micro-level consumer behaviors and macro-level market
decisions.
One could claim that the best relationship marketing strategy is the
one that reduces consumer uncertainties and increase consumer trust
to market information and company in the digital markets. This, in
turn, reduces consumer’s vulnerability and hence accelerates market
growth through increased trustworthy communications in markets. In
today’s dynamically changing digital markets, consumer-to-company and
consumer to other consumers, and perhaps third parties require a better
understanding of each other’s intentions and potentials. This could be
started by empowering consumers in market relationships so that they can
also participate market value-creation processes with companies through
content and community development. Furthermore, companies should
reduce transaction-related uncertainties by developing company policies
that provide transparency.99 Companies should provide their code of
ethics without any loopholes or indeterminate terms on their websites.100
Designing an interactive company website which also features indepen-
dent consumer testimonials,101 product reviews, and recommendations
from trusted third parties102 and finally with third-party approvals seals
such as BBB103 would boost consumer trust and continuance commit-
ment to the company. Similarly, providing personalization options to
consumers who are continuously visiting the company website would
also help consumers to make more conscious choices and enhance their
264 S. U. KUCUK

commitment and loyalty to the company and its website.104 Finally,

companies should consider developing machine learning technologies to
narrow down some inauthentic posts and comments to fight with the
spread of false and/or misleading information targeting the company in
the social media.105 Finding such search efforts should also be shared with
related followers so that the company’s commitment to provide truthful
and honest communication opportunities with its consumers would be
appreciated.
Although building trustworthy relationship could play a significant role
in consumer’s digital continuance commitment, companies should also
work on developing digital affective consumer commitment. For that
purpose, companies should develop a strong social presence in online
communities and social networking platforms for a trustworthy and
committed relationship with consumers.106 The real commitment comes
when consumers feel a perfect match with the brand and its associations.
Consumer attachment to company/brand is another level, at unchange-
ably positive levels that they know exactly what to expect from the brand
with almost perfect certainty. This consumer–company or consumer–
brand unification is only possible through collaborative brand identity
development environments. These places are generally online commu-
nities and/or social networking environment where consumers interact
with their favorite brands daily and even hourly in the digital world.
Deviation of fundamental values that were represented in the brand or in
the company policies and stand on various social issues would eventually
influence digital affective commitment negatively.
Commitment sits at the heart of every consumer-to-company/brand as
well as consumer-to-consumer relationship in the digital world. Without
understanding the dimension of commitment in the digital world, it is
very hard to develop a constructive and long-standing market relation-
ship. In this context, understanding the digital continuance and affective
commitment concepts there will not only difficult to reach continuous
patronage but also any satisfying relationships with each market agents,
either company, consumer, or third parties, in the digital world.

Notes
1. Allison (1978).
2. Fournier et al. (1998).
3. Kucuk (2020).
 12 COMMITMENT 265

4. Louisa and Standing (1989).

5. Kucuk (2009a).
6. Kucuk (2009a), Kucuk (2009b), Gefen (2007).
7. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
8. Achrol (1991), Morgan and Hunt (1994), Garbarino and Johson
(1999), Fullerton (2003).
9. Mukherjee and Nath (2007), Casalo, Flavian and Guinaliu (2007), Dai,
Haried and Salam (2015), Xiao, et al. (2022).
10. Kucuk (2009a).
11. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003).
12. Moorman et al. (1992), Kucuk (2009b).
13. Luhmann (1979), Fukuyama (1995), Rousseau et al. (1998).
14. Urban et al. (2000); Kucuk (2009a).
15. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003), Kucuk (2009a).
16. Ekinci (2007).
17. Kucuk (2009a).
18. Kucuk (2009a).
19. Rotter (1967).
20. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003).
21. Lee and Turban (2001).
22. Gefen and Straub (2003).
23. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003).
24. Lee and Turban (2001).
25. Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, and Vitale (2000), De Ruyter et al. (2001).
26. Gefen (2000), Bhattacherjee (2002).
27. Kim and Prabhakar (2004).
28. Hoffman et al. (1999), Peepless (2002), Kucuk (2009a).
29. Pavlou (2003), Kucuk (2009b).
30. Lee and Turban (2001), Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa (2002), Pavlou
(2003).
31. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003).
32. Liu and Arnett (2000), Kim and Stoel (2004), Chellappa and Pavlou
(2002).
33. Ranganathan and Ganapathy (2002), Kim and Stoel (2004).
34. Urban et al. (2000), Kucuk (2009a).
35. Gefen and Straub (2003).
36. Bickart and Schindler (2001), Kucuk (2020).
37. Moorman et al. (1992), Kucuk (2009a), Kucuk (2020).
38. Kucuk (2020), Karagur et al. (2021 forthcoming).
39. Karagur et al., (2021 forthcoming).
40. Kucuk (2020).
41. Choi, et al. (2021).
42. Menczer and Hills (2020).
266 S. U. KUCUK

43. Vosoughi et al. (2018).

44. Simon (1971).
45. Menczer and Hills (2020).
46. Qui et al. (2017); Menczer and Hills (2020).
47. Menczer and Hills (2020).
48. Menczer and Hills (2020).
49. Aral (2020).
50. Kucuk (2009a).
51. Morgan and Hunt (1994).
52. Garbarino and Johnson (1999), Fullerton (2003).
53. Moorman et al. (1992).
54. Dwyer et al. (1987), Morgan and Hunt (1994), Garbarino and Johnson
(1999).
55. Moorman et al. (1992), Shankar et al. (2003).
56. Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987).
57. Anderson and Weitz (1992).
58. Choi and Ahluwalia (2013).
59. Shankar et al.(2003).
60. Morgan and Hunt (1994), Gundlach, Achrol and Mentzer (1995),
Garbarino and Johnson (1999), Fullerton (2005).
61. Mukherjee and Nath (2007), Xiao, et al. (2022).
62. Moorman, Zaltman and Deshpande (1992).
63. Sung and Choi (2010).
64. Choi and Ahluwalia (2013).
65. Scanzoni (1979), Dwyer et al. (1987).
66. Allen and Meyer (1990), Gruen et al. (2000), Fullerton (2003).
67. Fullerton (2003.
68. Allen and Meyer (1990), Fullerton (2003).
69. Fullerton (2003).
70. Fullerton (2003), Johnson (2007).
71. Johnson (2007).
72. Fullerton (2003).
73. Abid et al. (2019).
74. Garnarino and Johnson (1999).
75. Johnson (2007).
76. Fullerton (2003).
77. Garbarino and Johnson (1999).
78. Fullerton (2003).
79. Morgan and Hunt (1994).
80. Johnson (2007).
81. Choi and Ahluwalia (2013).
82. Marmorstein et al. (1992), Shankar et al. (2003).
83. Park and Kim (2003).
 12 COMMITMENT 267

84. Shankar et al. (2003).

85. Morgan and Hunt (1994); Garbarino and Johnson (1999); Sung and
Choi (2010)
86. Johnson (2007).
87. Xiao et al. (2022).
88. Mukherjee and Nath (2007).
89. Dai, Haried and Salam (2015).
90. Park and Kim (2003), Mukherjee and Nath (2007).
91. Casalo, Flavian and Guinaliu (2007).
92. Sung and Choi (2010).
93. Kucuk (2008); Kucuk (2010); Kucuk (2019).
94. Abid, Abid-Dupont and Moulins (2019).
95. Freestone and Vincent-Wayne (2004).
96. Kucuk (2016).
97. Vosoughi et al. (2018), Kucuk (2020).
98. Kucuk (2009a).
99. Grabner-Kräuter and Kaluscha (2003).
100. Kucuk (2011).
101. Kim and Prabhakar (2002).
102. de Ruyter et al (2001).
103. Kucuk (2011).
104. Kucuk (2011).
105. Menczer and Hills (2020).
106. Gefen and Straub (2000).

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 CHAPTER 13

Digital Marketing Mix Modeling

and Coordination

Today’s digital markets are getting more crowded as there are very
limited entry barriers to enter the digital markets, for both companies
and consumers. This, in turn, requires new techniques to effectively
connect and communicate with consumers. In this attention scare market
environments, high connectivity, either in addressability or findability
mode, is necessary to reach consumers. Even companies or consumer
creators can connect with others in the digital world, the likeability of
the content will determine the marketing success. Content marketing for
many products/services started to play door opener role in any marketing
transactions. Content and content marketing stretches broader range of
disciplines and applications and can also be utilized by consumers just like
companies and marketers. In this context, both consumers and business
communities turned out to be the major platforms in which new busi-
ness and marketing ideas can be invented and operationalized. Online
communities, with their enormous size, can easily change the direction of
consumption with powerful stories and content in a split a second because
of the high connectivity and strong group identities shared among group
members. Thus, online communities are used by both consumers and
companies as an information source where companies’ products/services
are criticized or admired. Power of such communities reached staggering
levels that consumers, now, can act like an alternative market agent to
company-generated marketing actions. Companies who feel powerless

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 273

Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0_13
274 S. U. KUCUK

to such rising consumer power in the digital world try to bypass such
online communities through hiring other consumers or develop some
automation tools to spread their fact challenging agendas into consumer
worlds. This, eventually, created company credibility problems. Further-
more, the differences between traditional marketing environments, where
most of the transactions and communications are conducted face-to-face
in the physical market environments, and digital markets, where a person
mostly known with his/her credit card number, reality could easily be
twisted. Such differences eventually reduced the behavioral predictability
of the company and hence consumers in these uncertain digital envi-
ronments. Any business transaction or simple communication attempts
cannot go anywhere if there is no trust between parties. Hence, there
cannot be any commitment relationship between company-to-consumer
and consumer-to-consumer formats.
Although all the aforementioned 4C elements described above help
companies and in fact consumers to create marketing value with different
capacities in various situations. Today’s digital marketing also requires
an integrated approach of such 4C elements to value creation. This can
be done by discussing the implications of the possible roles of each 4C
element in various theoretical marketing perspectives. This, further, might
address potential synergy effects that can be reached when such 4Cs are
used in a coordinated manner for ultimate marketing success. As discussed
in Chapter 7 (Marketing Mix Modeling), there are some fundamental
marketing concepts, such as Product Life Cycle, Consumer Decision
Models or Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) models, and so on.
These fundamental marketing concepts could provide a new and better
discussion forum to understand the capacity of such 4C elements. In this
context, this chapter will solely focus on digital marketing mix elements
(4Cs) and their synchronized use and hence modeling.

Product Life Cycle (PLC) and 4Cs

As discussed in earlier chapters, PLC is one of the most fundamental
marketing concepts it doesn’t matter if the discussion regards traditional
marketing or digital marketing world. Any new product, either in tradi-
tional or digital marketing platform, roughly goes through similar steps
as discussed in PLC. In this context, it would be fair to discuss and model
such digital marketing mix elements’ impact throughout the product’s life
as pictured in Fig. 13.1.
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 275

($)

Sales ($)

Profit ($)
+
Time
-

Introduction Growth Maturity Decline

Connectivity H M M L

Content H H M L

Community M H H M

Commitment H H M L

H: high importance, M: medium importance, L: low importance

Fig.13.1 Product life cycle and digital marketing mix interplay

In Introduction, products/services need to reach consumers. The

way to reach consumers in the digital world is through connectivity,
either with strong addressability or findability. The product’s success
is highly dependent on its ability to reach consumers as also deeply
discussed in diffusion models in Product chapter (Chapter 3). A good
first impression of new product is paramount and that could only be
established with a successful content strategy in the digital world. Thus,
content that can attract consumer awareness and attention can eventu-
ally bring consumers to the company’s website and increase consumer
engagement with the brand and company in the digital world. It is
276 S. U. KUCUK

generally a very optimistic view to think that all product/service informa-

tion and content can eventually spread all around the online community
and spread to other potential communities in the introduction stage.
Although the community plays important role in the introduction stage,
it might take some time until it reaches its own potential. Furthermore,
risk perception is generally high in the introduction stage, and hence
commitment can play an important role. Companies should also focus on
providing trustworthy, uncertainty-reducer tactics and predictable steps
that can encourage consumers to connect and/or start a new relation-
ship with company. This could be more important than ever as there
are already various forms of fake, misleading, and unethical messages
spreading all around the Internet. Therefore, the company should initially
focus on connectivity and content with the emphasis on commitment.
The community’s impact will eventually be felt in the following steps
with additional community outreach efforts, especially in the growth and
maturity stages.
In growth stage, once the company established good connections with
consumers, it can focus on content marketing, and spreading the word by
using e-WOM in online communities. Content marketing is highly impor-
tant at this stage as the company can modify its message and identity based
on early consumer reviews and feedback. The company can reach high
growth numbers in a short period of time by activating the social power
of online communities, hence communities play an enormous role in this
stage. If the company can’t reach and actively aggregate demand in online
communities, product life will be short-lived. Enhancing content and e-
WOM campaigns with truthful and credible facts eventually accelerates
growth further.
In maturity stage, reminding consumers and penetrating other parts
of the digital market is necessary. Hence, extra work would be needed
in connectivity by changing the content marketing tone into a more
reminding tone. This will eventually extend the life of the product/service
in the PLC. Company, perhaps, focuses more on its own fan-based
online communities and develops new communities to penetrate the
market deeply. This, further, will help the company to build a base-line
consumers who are ready to purchase new versions of products/services
in the near future. This eventually creates a sustainable base market for
the company. Commitment could be less important as the truth about
the product/services are already out in the markets, and the company
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 277

presumably closes all the potential security gaps in its systems and in the
digital markets.
In decline stage, connectivity would lose its steam as assumably the
company already reach potential consumers a couple of times. Yet, it could
be helpful to inform potential consumers about discounts through email
marketing about declining products/services. Content solely focuses on
sales tactics, yet such an approach could be backfired by the product’s
loyal users as they don’t want to see their product and brand as being
less valuable. Among all 4Cs, perhaps community and commitment play
a more significant role in decline as some late majority and laggards could
be still in the markets for the product. Theoretically, there would not
be much left for commitment as probably everything is said and done
to secure and truthful company–consumer communication and exchange
mechanism.

Consumer Decision-Making Process and 4Cs

Consumer decision-making process also goes through various stages, and
such stages could be influenced differently by 4Cs in the digital world. As
pictured in Fig. 13.2, a more detailed integrated approach is needed to
understand the role of individual digital marketing mix element’s role on
different stages of consumers’ decision-making process.
In the “stimulus” and “problem awareness” stages, traditional
marketing mix elements can play a significant role in creating a desire
and demand for the products/services. If these early stages are supported
with intense digital marketing mix elements such as connectivity, then
the consumer’s desires and perceptions can be influenced significantly. In
the problem awareness stage, consumer category needs could have already
been under the influence of possible brands. Thus, brand awareness could
be extended into the digital world through right online brand or domain
name branding efforts. In this stage, connectivity can help consumers to
determine a direction (whether go to a store or shop online) and requires
traditional media advertising support. This stage is generally where offline
or traditional marketing and digital marketing mix elements are constantly
intertwined and need to work in synchronized manner. From a purely
digital perspective, the company can intensively use many connectivity
tools such as email marketing, SEM, and domain name marketing to influ-
ence consumers’ stimulus and problem awareness as also indicated within
blue boxes at the bottom of Fig. 13.2. In other words, both addressability
 278

TRADITIONAL
S. U. KUCUK

MARKETING MIX

Evaluation
Stimulus Problem Information of Purchase Post
Awareness Search Alternatives Purchase

Community/Content Content/Commitment Community/ Commitment

CONNECTIVITY Collective Filtering, Viral Marketing/e-WOM
Email Marketing, SEM SEM e-WOM User Friendly Web Site UGC-Blogging
Domain Name Branding Comparative SEM Personalization Fake Detection

Fig.13.2 The role of digital marketing mix elements in consumer’s decision-making process
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 279

and findability play important roles in these two stages for significant
influence.
Once consumers recognize their needs and a significant amount of
desire is built by the company in these early stages, consumers eventually
need to start an information search about the products/services to make
the best decision possible. In this “information search” stage, findability is
more important than addressability, and hence the majority of consumers
try to utilize search engines to find the related information. As discussed
in Chapter 9, over 80% of consumers are starting their search through
search engines in today’s digital universe, hence SEM plays a very signif-
icant role on consumer’s digital journey.1 Although SEM could be the
major digital marketing value-creation tool at this stage, connectivity that
was supported by SEM and email marketing can play an important role
in providing product, place, price, choice, and information to consumers.
Today’s digital consumers are now capable to access an enormous amount
of information and options as a result of high connectivity. However,
such convenience brought other problems with itself such as informa-
tion overload.2 Thus, consumers now need to find their way among such
information bombardment from different sources, which in turn increases
consumer confusion which product/service to pick.
Thus, consumer “evaluation of alternatives” as a separate decision step
has gained more importance because of today’s information-rich digital
environments.3 Consumers are needing more decision support than ever,
hence like-minded consumers’ reviews that are posted in online commu-
nities and other third-party review sites can be used as a filtering tool.
Reading the experiences of other like-minded consumers with the possible
alternatives and listening to what is talked about in the market and online
communities now plays a major role in purchase decisions. Such collab-
orative filtering systems with online communities play a significant role
in reducing the product/service information in a manageable level as
also indicated by red highlights in Fig. 13.2. Furthermore, companies
can integrate some comparative tools on their website. With the help
of a clean and understandable website design content and the support
of online communities, consumers can be supported in this stage of
decision-making process. Thus, in the evaluation of alternatives stage,
both community, content, and comparative SEM as a connectivity feature
play a significant role in creating optimized effects on consumer’s deci-
sions. After “information search” stage, digital marketing 4C elements
play a more active role than traditional marketing mix elements.
280 S. U. KUCUK

At the “purchase” stage, easy ordering and payment options, which

can easily be supported with user-friendly website content and specifically
personalization options (for example, Amazon’s one-click buy system)
can eventually bring great navigational conveniences for consumers.
Increasing shopping cart abandonment rates (just below %70)4 and
product return rates (about 17%)5 are all indicating that companies
are struggling to close the purchase decisions in the digital shopping
platforms. One of the major reasons for such failure in the purchase
stage, consumers might have felt less secure and reluctant about the
value offered to them. Thus, companies also need to focus on trust and
commitment-building strategies in the purchase stage such as sharing
previous positive consumer experiences or compensation options if the
product/service can’t deliver the promised value. Therefore, both content
and commitment play a significant role in motivating consumers to finally
complete the shopping transactions as also indicated in Fig. 13.2.
In the traditional marketing mentality, “post-purchase” has limited
impact on consumption cycles as consumer reviews, feedback, and/or
complaints are generally lost in family or friend conversations or even
company complaint systems. This is not the case anymore as consumers
can easily share and discuss their experience of the company with fellow
consumers in their communities or blogs and hence disseminate either
positive or negative e-WOM in the digital markets. Because of high
connectivity within the digital markets, such consumer views spread
markets easily and quickly and hence influence many other potential
buyers’ preferences. Thus, companies need to understand how this new
complaint and complement process works and accordingly develop solu-
tions in the post-purchase stages before such negativity spread to all
digital world. Once the impact consumer views in the markets become
evident, now all the market actors, from competitors to consumers,
started to try to influence such consumer voice by manipulating the
consumer views or truth as discussed in detail in the commitment chapter
(Chapter 12). Thus, companies also need to invest more on commitment-
building strategies to protect their loyal and potential consumers against
such fake and misleading message campaigns. The higher the consumer
commitment to the company and the brand is, the less likely that the
company might lose such valuable consumers to fake messages. Compa-
nies should develop market listening systems to detect such fake messages
early on and develop counter strategies against them before they reach
the company’s loyal and potential consumers in the digital markets. As
a result, community management and commitment-building strategies
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 281

could play a significant role in post-purchase stages in the digital world as

also pointed out in Fig. 13.2.

Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) and 4Cs

Another very important marketing concept used by many scholars and
practitioners is “Attention-Interest-Desire-Action” (AIDA) Model. Thus,
the effectiveness of the 4Cs can similarly be discussed alongside the AIDA
model as also pictured in Fig. 13.3.
Consumer attention is one of the most scares entities in today’s digital
platforms as also previously discussed. One of the most effective ways to
cut the clutter and reach consumers’ minds could be possible with lively
and sometimes shocking images, stories, or hence coordinated content
mix planning. In this context, content is a very strong attention-catching
tool compared to other 4C elements. Once the consumers’ attention
is gained, the content’s importance fades away slowly throughout the
interest, desire stages, and reaches the lowest level in action stage as also
pictured in Fig. 13.3. Similar to content, connectivity plays an impor-
tant role at the beginning of AIDA process. Without having access to
consumers, the attention could not be gained as it is impossible to grab
consumers’ attention without being findable (e.g., by search engines)

Importance

Connectivity
HIGH
Commitment

Content

Moderate

Community

LOW
Stages
Attention Interest Desire Action

Fig.13.3 AIDA and 4Cs

282 S. U. KUCUK

and addressable (e.g., accessing the deal and company website with email
marketing content). Because of the rising use of smartphones and other
digital tools, high connectivity in various geographical spots and places
can easily be established. Connectivity and content are inseparable pieces
at the attention stage. However, connectivity sharply loses its importance
once the first contact is established with the consumers, and the rest is
left to the content mix elements’ success. Connectivity, by itself, is not
powerful enough to generate interest and desire. Connectivity always
needs the support of other digital mix elements to create the expected
impact on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Thus, after initial commu-
nication with consumers, connectivity’s importance drops and stays stable
afterward all the way to the action stage. Yet, connectivity could play some
role in the action stage as well if the consumer is ready to act. At that
point, the most important questions could be where and how to buy the
product. Consumers can go back over the emails they received from the
company or revisit the company website to make the order, so connec-
tivity (both findability and addressability) could regain a little importance
at the action stage. Connectivity, in general terms, works like “penetra-
tion” concept discussed in the traditional marketing models. If a company
wants to penetrate markets, it needs to develop the right connectivity
tools.
On the other hand, content continues to be important throughout
the AIDA process. Content is perhaps the most effective tool among all
4Cs generating attention which can further feed consumer interest and
desire all the way to the action stage. Coordinated content mix strategy
could continue to be an effective tool in fueling consumers’ interest and
desire and eventually motivating them to act to buy the product. If the
content can be shared within online communities, the effectiveness of
such content could reach the top. Although content’s importance could
lose steam a little bit in the action stage, company could shift to more
action-oriented content such as sales promotions and discounts as also
discussed in the Promotion chapter (Chapter 6). Such content could
eventually attract additional deal seekers if the company could continu-
ously and frequently shared sales discount content. Community, in this
context, could be used as an accelerator force if the content can success-
fully spread all around the online communities and markets. Although the
community is one of the most important 4C elements, at the attention
stage, very few content and information could catch fire and spread within
online communities. Majority of content could not go through beyond
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 283

community filtering systems and influencers’ approval and reach all the
community members. Community is one of the most important tools to
test and to develop messages and ideas for consumers, and hence commu-
nity’s importance elevated at the interest and desire stages is compared
to other stages in AIDA model. Once the content passes the attention
stage, community members would eventually share their views about the
content regarding products/services. This is how some content gets viral,
but some others die in the consumers’ timelines. Positive or negative
e-WOM created in online communities can eventually grab consumers’
interest if the credibility of the message or source is high. Community,
on the other hand, could have less impact on motivating the consumers
to act in a specific way at the action stage rather than interest and desire
stages.
Finally, commitment has a limited capacity to generate attention early
on. Although some fake and shocking news could trigger some atten-
tion, this could be faded away once consumers could get over the early
shock-effects created by such attention-grabbing and tabloid-like content.
Similarly, commitment could not play a very direct role in interest and
desire stages rather it can be treated as the silent sales factor. However,
consumer might feel the need to take all the reviews, company commit-
ments seriously if the desire to buy the product/service increases or
they made their mind to act in a specific direction, hopefully purchasing
the products/services. This, eventually, increases the importance of the
commitments provided by the company. Purchase guarantees and return
policies play a significant role in consumers’ preferences at the purchase
stage as this could be the only obstacle between acting to buy or giving
totally up the products/services. Furthermore, there can be significant
gaps between what the product actually is or how it performs outside the
digital world or in the real world and what it looks like onscreen. Thus,
consumers would need additional assurance from the company before
acting on the value they are getting, hence commitment could eventu-
ally play determining factor at the action stage as also described with a
blue line in Fig. 13.3.

Commitment Curve and 4Cs

Commitment curve (aka “community-commitment curve”) similar to
AIDA is also a process-based approach that emphasizes the step-by-step
progress of development of consumer commitment such as commitment
284 S. U. KUCUK

to a community or a person. The fact that it is sometimes not clear

whom exactly you are talking or interacting with on the digital platforms,
either with a person, robot, or dog, trust and commitment are natu-
rally at the heart of majority of communication processes as also broadly
discussed in Commitment chapter (Chapter 12). Consumers’ need for
more emotional safety and sense of belonging for protection is high in the
digital places and hence they find refuge in online communities.6 Thus,
the commitment and community are highly associated when discussing
the commitment curve.
Although AIDA mainly explains how a successful sale process evolves,
commitment curve mostly focuses on how to develop commitment or
hence a committed relationship with others and/or a community, a
company, or an institution. Although the focus could seem commitment
and community, all the 4C elements could also play a significant role in
shaping such a commitment process as also pictured in Fig. 13.4. For
example, the consumer first needs to be aware of the company, brand,
and/or company’s offerings. That is possible with various traditional
promotion tools or connecting to the digital world either through email
marketing tools, SEM, or any other addressability and findability tools.
This is defined as awareness stage in commitment curve but works similar
to attention stage discussed in AIDA model. At that point, consumer
commitment is at the lowest levels or even nonexistent as pictured in
Fig. 13.4. This is an initial first step as also defined as “preparation”
stage as noted at the top of Fig. 13.4. Once the first impact is estab-
lished, consumers start learning about the company/brand through the
content created in the company’s website, social networking page, or the
digital ads or perhaps email content that was sent to them from company.
Online communities are perfect places to develop brand content for the
consumptions of the company/brand’s followers. These stages are defined
as “understanding” and “adoption” stages in the commitment curve
and can help companies to develop a basic structure of trust through
intense use of content within online communities. Further, consumers
could adopt such content, message, and idea by joining a community
or adopting this into his/her social media and hence sharing with every-
body. Once a person gets good feedback and enjoys such message content
and sharing experience with others, it means he is adopting the commu-
nity. This is also a sign that consumer is one step closer to being a more
committed partner of the community. In this context, trust could be
built, and adoption can be strengthened through use of both community
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 285

Preparation Trust/Adoption Commitment

Commitment
Commitment

Community Commitment

Content
Connectivity
Adoption

Understanding
Awareness

Time

Fig.13.4 Commitment curve in the digital markets

and content. Thus, the three “C” elements, connectivity, content, and
community are used to build a strong infrastructure to build a commit-
ment in this context. Throughout these initial two steps, consumer
commitment could also reach new highs from none. The goal is even-
tually to build not only trustworthy but also committed relationship
with consumers for rewarding business outcomes for both consumers
and companies. The final destination in the commitment curve, a fully
committed relationship, could eventually be out of reach with the help
of additional commitment-building tools, which were broadly discussed
in the commitment chapter (Chapter 12) once previous steps progress
successfully.
286 S. U. KUCUK

Consumer-based Brand Building and 4Cs

Brands go through various steps before reaching many benefits of
successful branding such as brand loyalty and brand equity.7 Brands are
one of the most powerful intangible and valuable assets of today’s compa-
nies as also discussed very well by Keller (2001: 3) as follows: “… the
power of a brand lies in what customers have learned, felt, seen, and heard
about the brand over time. In other words, the power of a brand resides
in the minds of customers ”. Thus, brands should first need to activate
consumer’s senses and make them feel connected with the brand in order
to be able to start a long and sometimes time-consuming brand building
process. No brand could be built in instance on the spot, it requires
developmental steps before reaching its full capacity. Thus, the first step
in consumer-based brand building process is building “brand awareness”
as also indicated in Fig. 13.5. This is the stage in which consumer first
faces with the brand and brand name, symbols and initial attraction play
a significant role in this stage. This is an introduction stage in which
consumers get to know who you are.8
In the digital markets, some consumers who have brief knowledge
about the brand, which was dominantly created by traditional media tools,
can simply go to the internet by putting specific domain names in their

Commitment
Brand &
Loyalty Community

Content
Brand Attitude &
Community

Brand Awareness Connectivity

Fig.13.5 Stages of consumer-based brand building in the digital platforms

 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 287

browsers to directly access the brand. On the other hand, some others
might be linked to the company’s website through search engines and/or
company-generated email campaigns. Thus, the first step to creating
brand awareness is to maximize consumer connectivity to the brand in
all the digital platforms possible.9 There will always be some numbers of
consumers who could not be reached or follow your efforts full atten-
tion and hence it is likely that not the whole market would be accessed.
As indicated with the triangle figure in Fig. 13.5, some percentage of
consumers who are aware of your brand would eventually be ready to
listen to what you offer. In other words, once such a limited number
of consumers are aware of the brand in the digital platform, their atti-
tude toward it can be shaped by listening to or reading what other
consumers/friends are saying about it. Thus, online communities could
be major places where consumers’ positive and negative attitudes are
shared with like-minded consumers across the markets. Thus, consumer
enters the “brand attitude” building stage. This is the stage in which
companies introduce their identity and hence indicate what they are.
Brand identity mismatch might trigger a negative brand attitude toward
the brand. This is the area where the company should invest a signifi-
cant amount of time and money to develop the right content marketing
tools to build a brand identity and positive consumer attitude toward the
brand. Without an appropriately synchronized content mix, no identity
or no idea regarding brand could be formed in the digital world. Clearly,
it is almost impossible to create consumer base with highly positive brand
attitude toward the brand. Only some percent of consumers with posi-
tive brand attitude will be a candidate to be fully dedicated, committed,
and highly loyal consumers at the end of the process.10 Furthermore,
we assume that consumers also received enough exposure and experience
with the brand and hence are willing to commit to brand with the help of
support strategies discussed in the commitment chapter (Chapter 12). In
other words, if consumers start using your brands, then your company has
an opportunity to commit to providing the expected value elements every
time consumers need your brand. This, in turn, opens the door to loyal
consumers11 (see Fig. 13.5). This is also possible with community support
as some consumers work like recruiters and welcome other like-minded
consumers into their online brand communities. Further, in brand loyalty
level, consumers work with company and brand and generate new ideas
and spread brand messages all around the markets. Such loyal consumers
could be considered as brand fans who are ready to work for brand cause
288 S. U. KUCUK

voluntarily, and they can easily be found in various forms of brand fan
sites in social networks. At this stage, it would be fair that the company
could reach consumers partner who can help to develop the brand by
collaborating with the company, hence community and commitment as
4C elements could play a significant role in this stage.

Competition and 4Cs

Although discussing 4Cs comparative effectiveness with various marketing
concepts provide a better understanding of such new digital value
elements, how they could impact markets and consumer behaviors
in different level of competitiveness also need to be investigated. As
discussed broadly in Chapter 6, markets can be classified based on the
intensity of competition from “monopoly” in which there is no competi-
tion as only one company rules the markets to “pure competition” where
the highest level of competition storms whole market and nobody can
economically rule the others.
As pictured in Fig. 13.6., effectiveness of each 4C elements is not
that important as there are no competitors in the market other than
company itself. Although the company enjoys being the only one in
the market and set the market rules by itself, the company would even-
tually need consumers. Hence, connectivity would be more important
than any other 4C elements. Without consumer connection, it does not
matter if you are the ruling company in the markets. Perhaps, the next
important 4C element could be content, especially informative content,
that informs consumers about prices and product options. Following
this order, community and commitment would be less important than
content but eventually importance of such digital value elements would
get higher with the increasing competition in the markets. From monop-
olistic market structure to pure competitive markets, companies could use
such 4Cs elements for competitive reasons. Yet, commitment is less likely
to be perceived as a competitive tool unless the market reaches a pure
competition in which some unidentifiable plural voices start impacting
market value systems.
Once the market reaches oligopoly structure, where there are only a
couple of major companies active, connectivity could still be the priority
and content start focusing more not only on informative message but also
on persuasive message with related content mix elements. In oligopoly
markets, online communities can slowly be formed by mostly experts and
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 289

Importance

HIGH
Connectivity

Content
Moderate
Community

Commitment
LOW
Competition
Monopoly Oligopoly Monopolistic Pure Intensity
Competition Competition

Fig.13.6 Competition and 4Cs

their voices have a limited impact on markets as companies still control

the market rhetoric and marketing messages. Communities could be used
to differentiate the brand identities in oligopoly markets as such identity-
defining features barely surfaces in the oligopolistic markets. Once the
market reveals monopolistic competition and starts slowly approaching
the pure competition structure, there would be large numbers of competi-
tors in the markets, hence the intensity of competition will be elevated.
This is the sign that competition will determine the market returns of the
company, and hence companies need to be ready for fierce competition.
In this stage, connectivity is still the most competitive tool as compa-
nies try to reach their consumers in every potential communication spot
in the markets with more persuasive and appealing deals. All aspects of
the content mix elements can be utilized with the support of connec-
tivity features such as email marketing and SEM in this circumstance.
Communities which initially formed by some early adopters and expert
consumers could eventually reach regular consumer markets and hence
direct consumption-oriented communities would be ready for regular
consumers’ service in the monopolistic competitive markets. With the
increasing competition, communities could also gain more importance
in shaping and strengthening brand identity and more brand polariza-
tions and differentiations can be observed in the markets with the help
of online communities in the digital markets. Thus, connectivity, content,
290 S. U. KUCUK

and community digital value elements’ importance are elevated along the
way increasing competition in the markets.
In a pure competitive market, product/brand differentiation could be
harder for consumers as most of the products are similar to each other
and the number of competitors would reach the maximum. Thus, all
4C elements play a significant role in competing with close substitutes.
Commitment finally reaches the highest importance in this market struc-
ture as various and sometimes conflicting messages from different sources
pour in the markets, and this, in turn, increases consumer confusion
and dissonance. Competitors’ programmed bots or competitor-financed
online communities, and bloggers further increase the need for trust-
worthy and committed marketing communications and interaction in a
close pure competitive market. The integration of traditional 4Ps into
digital 4C elements would be necessary for a successful company presence
in the digital markets.

Conclusion
Today’s companies are utilizing new and innovative digital tools every day.
These new digital tools are conceptualized as 4Cs elements or connec-
tivity, content, community, and commitment in this book’s context. The
more that companies join the new digital platforms and start using such
new digital marketing tools, the more they will need to understand the
potentials of such new digital marketing mix elements. In this context,
although such digital marketing elements have different functions and
can create market value by themselves, they can also influence markets
and consumer behaviors more significantly especially when they were
used together in a coordinated manner in different marketing situations.
The integration of such digital marketing mix elements in traditional or
digital marketing plans and activities could eventually bring companies
into their targets closer. Thus, understanding the effectiveness of such an
integrated approach in relation to consumer behaviors is as important as
understanding the single digital marketing mix elements discussed here.
Understanding potential synergies among such digital value elements are
also evitable to eliminate unnecessary or duplicated marketing spending
for efficient and effective marketing impact in the markets. As a result, the
need for companies to understand such digital marketing mix elements
 13 DIGITAL MARKETING MIX MODELING AND COORDINATION 291

and their interactions for well-coordinated marketing activities is indis-

pensable for reaching long-lasting marketing success in today’s digital
world.

Notes
1. https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-marketing/search-engine-
statistics/
2. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
3. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
4. https://www.shopify.com/blog/shopping-cart-abandonment visited on
7/22/2022.
5. Repko (2022).
6. McMillan and Chavis (1986).
7. Keller (2001).
8. Keller (2001).
9. Kucuk (2011).
10. Kucuk (2011).
11. Kucuk (2011).

References
Keller, Kevin L. (2001). Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint
for creating strong brands, Marketing Science Institute Working Paper Series,
Report No. 01–107.
Kucuk, S. U. (2011). Towards integrated e-marketing value creation process.
Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 12(4), 345–363.
Kucuk, S. U., & Krishnamurthy, S. (2007). An analysis of consumer power on
the Internet. Technovation, 27 (1–2), 47–56.
McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition
and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6–23.
Repko, M. (2022). A more than $761 billion dilemma: Retailers’ returns jump
as online sales grow, cnbc.com, January 25, 2022 (visited on 07/22/2022).
 Index

A Attention-Interest-Desire-Action
addressability, 129, 130, 133, 135,
157–159, 175, 180, 181, 273,
275, 277, 279, 282, 284
adoption, 133, 284
advertising, 7, 74–84, 88, 95, 99,
105, 106, 121, 139, 143, 171,
175, 181, 185, 203, 204, 229,
277
advertising revenue, 190, 196, 225,
229
affective commitment (AC), 258, 259,
261, 262, 264
agents, 60, 119, 122, 123, 128, 132,
264
Amazon, 148, 190, 280
AOL, 220, 224
apathetic, 94, 95
Apple, 45, 111
artificial intelligence (AI), 139, 201,
208
attention economy, 126, 134, 138,
150, 186
(AIDA), 107, 108, 274, 281–284
attitude, 19, 36, 80, 82, 84, 94, 96,
188, 200, 204, 206, 207, 227,
233, 261, 282, 287
audience, 7, 73, 75, 81, 82, 138,
145, 191–193, 203, 218, 219,
235, 247, 253, 257, 258
audio content, 193, 194
augmented reality (AR), 222
automated WOM, 253
availability awareness (AA), 68, 69, 83
awareness, 19, 21, 67–70, 78, 79, 81,
82, 95, 97–99, 108–110, 138,
139, 143, 144, 171, 174, 180,
181, 186, 191, 198, 200, 218,
235, 262, 277, 284, 287
B
B2B markets, 74, 90, 190, 191, 198,
199, 257
B2C, 190, 191, 199
banner blindness, 195
BBB, 263

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 293
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
S. U. Kucuk, Visualizing Marketing, Palgrave Studies in Marketing,
Organizations and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18215-0
294 INDEX
believability, 81
biased, 253
black-hate SEM, 179
bloggers, 203, 204, 208, 246, 290
bots, 149, 253, 255, 290
brand attitude, 191, 197, 203, 223,
287
brand building, 108, 286
brand community, 221, 223
branded search, 174
brand equity, 98, 108–110, 286
brand evaluation, 228
brand identification, 258
brand loyalty (BL), 66, 67, 87, 98,
108–110, 112, 144, 158,
190–192, 223, 235, 286, 287
brand polarization, 289
brand switching, 46, 84, 87, 98, 109
break-even, 40, 47, 69, 141, 142
bullwhip effects, 64, 65
C 280, 284, 289
C2C, 131, 142
calculative commitment, 259
channel, 70, 73, 109, 133, 138, 150,
185, 189, 203, 229, 243, 253
channel member, 58, 60, 97
Christensen’s Technology S-Curve, 29
click-through, 161, 174
click-through rates, 180
climax, 230
code of ethics, 263
cognitive, 90, 137, 248, 256
collective filtering, 162
commitment curve, 283–285
commonality, 216, 217
compatibility, 16
competition, 24–26, 29, 45, 78, 104,
110–112, 130, 131, 180,
288–290
competitiveness, 16, 27–29, 37, 110,
112, 288
Connectivity, Content, Community,
and Commitment (4C), 3, 122,
123, 125–128, 131, 140, 150,
189, 190, 224, 244, 245, 274,
277, 279, 281, 282, 284, 288,
290
consumer attention, 93, 97, 104, 107,
134, 135, 139, 150, 161, 163,
167, 181, 186, 187, 196, 206,
208, 257, 281
consumer awareness, 19, 25, 68, 82,
103, 275
consumer community, 223, 245
consumer logistic, 132
consumer surplus, 43
consumption, 12, 17, 29, 31, 34, 37,
57, 58, 60, 69, 70, 77, 84, 85,
96, 105, 122, 124, 128, 131,
134–136, 140–142, 144, 145,
171, 188, 190, 199, 200, 202,
220, 228, 245, 255, 258, 273,
content complexity, 205, 208, 236
content marketing, 121, 138, 139,
175, 186–188, 190–193, 195,
198, 199, 208, 273, 276, 287
content matching, 221
content mix, 139, 193, 194, 196,
199, 200, 202, 208, 281, 282,
287–289
content mix management, 139, 199
continuance commitment (CC),
258–260, 263, 264
convenience, 15, 19, 42, 66, 129,
171, 224, 236, 251, 279, 280
convenience product, 27, 61, 87
conversion, 228, 229, 260
cost, 15, 16, 25, 39, 40, 46–49, 54,
56, 58, 63, 74, 104, 136, 142,
146, 219, 259
credence quality, 34

credibility, 122, 146–150, 190, 203,
204, 208, 223, 233, 237,
243–245, 248, 256, 263, 274,
283
Crossing chasm, 22
cross-price elasticity, 45, 46
culture, 195, 199, 200
D emotional intensity, 233
decline, 25–27, 29, 30, 41, 79, 83,
150, 174, 277
demand, 9, 11, 22, 26, 35, 39–46,
48, 53, 54, 56, 63–65, 70, 84,
90, 96, 97, 136, 141–143, 158,
187, 276, 277
design complexity, 206, 207
diffusion models, 21, 22, 25, 95, 275
digital marketing, 3, 4, 12, 93,
120–123, 125, 126, 128, 146,
150, 151, 181, 202, 216, 224,
236, 244, 274, 279, 290
digital marketing mix, 122, 125, 127,
136, 145, 151, 185, 274, 277,
290
diminishing returns, 48, 77, 197
discontinuity, 29
disintermediation, 60
distribution, 11, 36, 39, 52, 57, 58,
61–63, 66–70, 77, 106, 110,
112, 113, 132, 138, 143, 147,
148, 166, 167
distribution channel, 59, 60, 64, 65,
70, 83, 96–98, 132, 142, 158
distribution elasticity (De), 61, 62
domain name, 157, 158, 168–173,
178, 180, 181, 277, 286
domain name branding, 168, 169
E
Early adopters, 21, 25, 289
Early Majority, 21, 22, 25
INDEX 295
early market, 22, 120, 248
e-auction, 131, 142
Ebbinghaus Curve, 75
electronic Word-of-Mouth (e-WOM),
144, 145, 223–226, 230–237,
276, 280, 283
email marketing, 133, 157–161, 163,
166, 168, 181, 189, 246, 277,
284, 289
evaluation of alternatives, 106, 279
exclusive distribution, 61
experience quality, 34
extremist, 94
F
Facebook, 190, 205, 224, 226
fake, 122, 145, 190, 197, 236, 244,
253–255, 263, 276, 280, 283
false negative, 164
fans, 235, 287
feature complexity, 206, 207
Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
204, 253
filtering, 144, 162–166, 168, 186,
208, 225, 232, 279, 283
findability, 129, 132, 133, 157, 158,
168, 169, 173, 175, 178, 180,
181, 189, 203, 273, 275, 279,
282, 284
Fixed Cost, 24, 46, 47, 58
Forgetting Curve, 75
free market, 127
free riding, 132
frequency, 75, 77, 109, 163, 167,
168, 174, 199
frequently purchased product, 19, 27,
61, 77, 79, 80, 85, 87, 110
G
Gmail, 171
296 INDEX
good-dominant, 34
goods, 15, 19, 34, 61, 63, 80, 107,
248
Google, 171, 173
growth, 16, 22, 25–29, 104, 113,
120, 224, 263, 276
H L
habits, 15, 19, 37, 60, 166
hacking, 263
hard-selling, 89
hierarchy of digital needs, 124
I likes, 192, 201, 227, 228, 230
identity commitment, 258
impersonal, 250
impression, 60, 75, 82, 134, 178,
207, 275
impulsive, 63, 67, 69, 74, 77, 79,
206, 207
influencers, 121, 134, 149, 189, 199,
202, 203, 246, 252, 253, 283
information asymmetry, 248
information overload, 139, 163, 165,
167, 248, 254, 279
information search, 106, 107, 173,
279
innovation, 11, 15, 16, 20, 21, 26,
37, 150
innovators, 21, 22, 25
Instagram, 205, 236
intensive distribution, 61
interactive, 88, 89, 93, 134, 135,
137, 192, 195, 219, 261–263
Interest, 2, 7, 17, 81, 82, 91–95, 107,
134, 140, 159, 161–163, 166,
168, 190, 191, 196, 200, 216,
217, 221, 225, 227, 281–283
internal marketing, 36
interpersonal, 250
intimacy, 233
introduction, 22, 25, 27, 29, 104,
180, 275, 276, 286
inventory, 27, 53, 58–60, 63–65, 84,
87, 137
inventory control, 63
inventory effects, 84
lack of post-promotion dip, 85–87
Laggards, 22, 25, 277
Late Majority, 21, 22, 277
learning curve, 80
likeability, 122, 135, 136, 186, 187,
192, 206, 207, 228, 273
liking, 197, 206, 207, 217, 228, 236
link farming, 179
loyalty, 36, 66, 67, 84, 87, 88, 98,
109, 113, 146, 189, 200, 208,
256, 259, 260, 262, 264
M
machine learning, 264
mainstream market, 22, 24, 27
manufacturer, 52, 57–61, 65, 66, 70,
84, 87, 97
marginal analysis, 42
Marginal Cost, 48, 49
Marginal Revenue (MR), 42, 48, 49
marketer-generated content (MGC),
200, 202
marketing channel, 69, 120
marketing mix, 3, 8–10, 12, 31, 36,
39, 50, 55, 57, 61, 69, 70, 73,
99, 100, 103–105, 107–110,
112–114, 121, 125, 127, 150,
185, 215, 245, 277, 279
marketing-mix modeling, 3
marketing plan, 8, 16, 17, 57, 199,
290
marketing synergy, 3, 10, 74, 114

market modification, 30
market penetration, 17, 18
market share (MS), 29, 45, 54,
61–63, 110, 112, 113
massing, 78
maturity, 21, 25–27, 104, 276
media-advertising, 87, 88
memorability, 170, 171
merchandising, 52, 66–68, 83, 98,
158
message, 55, 57, 73, 75–78, 80–82,
88, 91, 92, 105, 106, 125, 133,
134, 138, 139, 143–145, 147,
149, 150, 157, 159–168, 180,
181, 187, 189, 195, 198, 202,
203, 205–208, 217–219, 223,
229–237, 244, 245, 253, 257,
276, 280, 283, 284, 287–290
metatags, 175, 203
metaverse, 141, 222, 223
microblogging, 230
middlemen, 60, 61
Mimic Brand, 52
misleading, 127, 145, 149, 150, 197,
249, 253, 256, 264, 276, 280
monopoly, 110, 111, 288
multi-climax, 230, 232
N 173, 187, 200, 203, 215, 216,
national brand, 52
new product, 15–22, 25–27, 29, 30,
32, 36, 53, 103, 129, 130, 147,
180, 195, 274, 275
O price equilibrium, 43, 53
oligopoly, 111, 288, 289
omnichannel distribution, 131, 132,
137
omnichannel marketing, 132, 133,
138, 158
INDEX 297
online community, 142–144, 146,
189, 217, 219, 226–228, 230,
234, 235, 245, 260, 262, 276
opinion leader, 74, 94
organic SEM, 178, 179
out-of-stock (OOS), 57, 64, 66–70,
143
P
paid advertising, 178
paid placement, 178
paid SEM, 178–180
pay per click (PPC), 191, 192
penetration, 17–20, 82, 83, 113, 282
perceived benefits, 50
perception, 39, 50, 54, 55, 82, 100,
109, 110, 146, 150, 167, 222,
230, 235, 253, 261, 262, 276,
277
permission marketing, 160
personalization, 129, 135, 139,
200–203, 263, 280
personal selling, 74, 88–90, 93, 95,
97–99, 107, 185
post-purchase, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96,
132, 146, 246, 280, 281
post-sales, 84
power, 19, 52, 53, 66, 88, 111, 120,
122, 127, 140–142, 144, 145,
219, 235–237, 246, 249, 250,
273, 274, 276
predictability, 122, 146, 148–150,
201, 256, 274
prestige pricing, 52
price elasticity, 40, 43–45
price lining, 53
problem awareness, 106, 277
product availability, 26, 39, 57, 61,
67, 68, 77, 82, 104, 143, 251
product awareness, 19, 20, 97
298 INDEX
product development, 16–18, 22, 24,
25, 27, 29, 30, 53, 104, 129,
130, 135, 146
product differentiation, 26, 29, 104,
111
product diffusion, 21, 25
production, 16, 47, 48, 57, 58, 69,
86, 130, 135
product launch, 17, 19, 22
Product Life Cycle (PLC), 21, 25, 27,
29, 30, 37, 41, 53, 103, 274,
276
product life extension, 28, 29
product modification, 29, 104
Product, Price, Place, and Promotion
(4P), 3, 8, 12, 31, 33, 100, 103,
104, 119, 125, 127, 128, 131,
135, 140, 150, 245, 290
product segmentation, 31–33, 37
profit, 25, 26, 31, 36, 42, 43, 45–49,
54, 104, 132, 142, 215, 220
profitability, 24, 28, 30, 37, 40, 47,
112, 174, 228
promotion mix, 74, 95, 96, 110, 139
prosumers, 130, 224
publicity, 74, 168
public opinion, 93–95
public relations, 74, 93–99
pulsing, 78
pure competition, 112, 288, 289
Push and Pull, 96, 98, 157
Push-Based-Awareness (PBA), 68–70,
98, 104
Q 97–99, 110, 192, 282
quality, 2, 16, 23, 27, 29, 34, 50–54,
88, 94, 104, 109, 110, 112, 136,
137, 163, 167, 189, 191–194,
223, 245, 252, 254, 256, 261,
262
R
reach, 2, 8, 10, 11, 16–18, 21, 22,
24, 25, 28–31, 36, 45, 47, 48,
53–55, 57, 60, 61, 63, 68–70,
73–75, 77, 82, 85, 90, 95, 99,
103, 108, 109, 113, 121, 123,
128, 130, 131, 133, 137, 141,
142, 144–146, 150, 162, 170,
173, 179, 180, 186, 194, 195,
199, 200, 208, 217–219, 227,
232, 235, 237, 249, 256–259,
261, 264, 273, 275–277,
280–283, 285, 288–290
relational bonding, 256
relationship gap, 92, 93
repeat purchase, 19–21, 87, 109, 113
retailer, 52, 59, 60, 66, 68, 83, 84,
87, 98, 132, 148, 149, 158
retention curve, 91, 92
return on your investment (ROI),
191, 192
revenue, 37, 39, 41, 42, 48, 57, 77,
112, 142, 168, 174, 178, 187,
190, 191, 195, 202, 224, 225,
228, 229
S
safety stock, 64, 65
sales, 7, 19, 22, 24–29, 31, 45, 47,
53, 55, 58, 61, 63, 64, 74, 76,
82–87, 89–93, 96, 104, 107,
111, 113, 131, 132, 138, 142,
145, 159, 166, 187, 196, 202,
228, 244, 252, 277, 282, 283
sales personal, 92
sales promotion, 74, 83–88, 94, 95,
Sales revenue, 112, 228
satisfaction, 20, 22–24, 35–37, 64,
93, 96, 106, 132, 138, 189, 194,
200, 207, 223, 259, 261, 262
search algorithm, 175

search engine marketing (SEM), 121,
133, 157, 158, 173, 174,
178–181, 191, 203, 246, 277,
279, 284, 289
search engine optimization (SEO),
180–182
search quality, 34
security, 123, 216, 251, 262, 277
segmentation, 25, 31–34, 45, 129,
215–217
selective distribution, 61
semantic search, 175, 181
sensory pricing, 54
service-dominant, 34
services, 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, 25, 34–37,
46, 47, 55, 57, 58, 69, 70,
73–76, 82, 86, 90, 91, 94, 95,
105–107, 109, 113, 121, 122,
129–132, 134–136, 138–144,
146, 147, 149, 150, 158, 159,
166, 167, 170, 173–175, 177,
181, 185, 187–192, 194, 196,
201, 217, 223, 224, 227, 228,
243, 245, 248, 249, 251–253,
256, 258, 260–262, 273,
275–277, 279, 280, 283, 289
shareability, 122, 140, 145, 192, 218,
219, 229, 232, 234–236
Share of Voice (SOV), 229
sharing economy, 126, 127, 140, 150
shopping product, 63, 77, 80, 258
size-switching, 66
social conformity, 254
social diffusion, 254, 255
social network marketing, 144
social networks, 122, 132, 140,
142–145, 181, 189, 196,
203–207, 215, 217, 218, 220,
221, 224, 226–230, 235, 236,
244, 246, 253, 258, 264, 284,
288
social relationship, 221
INDEX 299
social universe, 222
Solution, Information, Value and
Access (SIVA), 9
source credibility, 232
SPAM, 158, 160–168, 181
specialty product, 51, 61, 77, 87,
104, 143
S-Shape, 80
stimulus, 95, 105, 106, 277
storage costs, 59
strong ties, 233–235, 237
Supply Surplus, 43
synergy, 85, 103, 120, 179–181, 198,
216, 274
T
Top-Of-Mind-Awareness (TOMA),
67–69, 75, 97, 98, 180
Total Cost, 25, 46–48, 63, 74
trade promotions, 83, 84
traditional marketing, 3, 4, 58, 99,
119, 121, 122, 127–130, 135,
136, 138, 139, 143, 144, 148,
150, 157, 171, 175, 178, 191,
192, 194, 202, 203, 215, 216,
228, 229, 236, 243–245, 248,
250–252, 274, 277, 282
transaction, 39, 43, 58, 59, 90, 107,
120, 249, 251, 260, 263, 273,
274, 280
trust, 22, 35, 74, 94, 126, 127,
145–150, 178, 179, 201, 223,
232, 233, 243, 244, 246, 247,
249–257, 259, 261–263, 274,
280, 284
trustworthiness, 189, 197, 244, 245,
250, 251, 253
Truth Effects, 81
Twitter, 205, 224, 229, 255
typographical error, 172
typosquatting, 172, 173, 181
300 INDEX
U Variable Cost, 24, 46, 47
uncertainty, 15, 50, 74, 150, 200,
248, 249, 252, 257, 276
unfounded, 244, 263
Unit Variable Costs, 47
unverified, 122, 145, 249, 255
URL hijacking, 172
usage, 11, 31, 46, 82–84, 200
usage modification, 31
user generated content (UGC), 130,
135, 141, 186, 189, 202–205,
208
utilitarian, 259, 260
V website content, 134, 137, 187, 189,
value, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 27, 33, 34, 36,
39, 40, 42, 44, 50, 52, 53, 55,
57, 73, 80, 83, 100, 103, 104,
106, 109, 119–123, 125–131,
133–136, 139–142, 144, 145,
148, 150, 151, 157, 166, 171,
185, 187, 189, 190, 192, 195,
203, 215–217, 220, 224, 227,
245, 246, 256, 257, 263, 274,
277, 279, 280, 283, 287, 288,
290
Value Adjustment, 27
value corridor, 51, 52
value perception, 106, 137
vertical integration, 60
viral marketing, 144, 145, 225, 230,
231
virtual reality (VR), 139, 222
visual content, 175, 193, 195, 196,
199, 200, 205, 236
voicesumer, 225
vulnerability, 249, 255, 257, 263
W
weak ties, 233–235
wear out effects, 78, 79, 81
194, 200–203, 208, 251, 261,
262, 280
website visibility, 174, 177–180
wellbeing, 11, 37, 143, 149, 256
wholesaler, 60, 83
word-of-mouth (WOM), 160, 163,
168, 171, 225, 229, 230, 233,
234, 237, 252, 253
written content, 193–195, 198–200
Y
YouTube, 139, 190, 196, 198, 199,
229, 236