When considering donation, donors may evaluate causes of need and deservedness of recipients (Bekers & Wiepking, 2011). The plight of recipients may be attributed to their misbehaviors (e.g., laziness) or social problems (e.g., poor welfare), which in turn influences donation decisions. To maximize persuasiveness of donation appeals, therefore, marketers of charity events should decide how to describe donation recipients. How potential donors perceive recipient responsibility also interacts with donor characteristics (Lee, Winterich, & Ross, 2014). We investigate how causes of need interact with donors’ cultural background to determine reactions to donation appeals. Drawing upon research on the cultural differences in thinking styles and causal attributions (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998), we propose that donation appeals are better accepted when there is a correspondence between donors’ cultural background and causes of need than when such correspondence lacks. We find that Westerners and Easterners show distinctive reactions to charity appeals that present different causes of need. Specifically, we demonstrate that Westerners are more attracted to appeals with external causes, whereas Easterners are relatively unconcerned about causes of need. We also offer insight into the process via empathy and outcome efficacy through which cause of need and culture collaboratively affect persuasiveness of charity appeals. Empathy drives the effect for both Westerners and Easters; outcome efficacy drives the effect for Westerners only.

This research examines the impact of closing versus opening eyes on consumers’ decision making as to whether the decision context is driven by utilitarian versus hedonic motivation. The findings from three studies show that consumers processing advertising messages with their eyes closed are likely to use high-level, abstract processing, and thus more positively evaluate the utilitarian products (vs. the hedonic products). On the contrary, consumers with their eyes open are likely to use low-level, concrete processing, and thus more positively evaluate the hedonic products (vs. the utilitarian products). Implications for consumers and marketers are discussed.

This study is intended to provide marketing practitioners with an overview of web analytics to explore the issue of how to define and measure the effectiveness of social media through analyzing the various activities of current/potential consumers as well as provide a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of digital content marketing using social media. These analytics answer broad questions about which types of social media metrics are best at referring traffic, about conversations at the organization’s website, and about comparing different social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter in this study. The major goal of this study is to demonstrate the value of businesses’ efforts and to optimize their digital/social marketing strategy using web analytics. Based on this goal three research questions were identified: (1) can the model identify social media performance variables that are related to audience response which can be represented by website traffic?; (2) which social media sties are driving traffic to a firm’s website, specifically in B2B environment?; and (3) can the model provide insight into the importance of those variables? These analytics employ time series analysis to specifically address activities in SNSs that effectively drive traffic to a website and accomplish business goals. This study is one of the first empirical investigations in the marketing communication field related to measuring social media’s effectiveness.

We study liberals and conservatives in the United States and Korea to see how they respond to charity advertising that appeals to either equality or proportionality. The findings robustly demonstrate that in both countries, liberals respond more favorably to equality appeals, but conservatives respond more favorably to proportionality appeals. Study 1, conducted in the United States, finds that liberals find equality appeals more effective, but conservatives find proportionality appeals more effective. Study 2, conducted in Korea, shows that liberals (conservatives) estimate that they are more (less) likely to receive rewards for donating when charity advertising uses equality rather than proportionality appeals.

The purposes of this study are to explore firstly two teachers’ EFL writing classrooms at a university in Korea and secondly students’ perceptions on their teachers’ classroom-based teaching for EFL writing in the same social and institutional context. The classroom interactions focus on rules of processes and teaching and learning of writing. The data comprise classroom observations of two EFL writing classrooms and interviews with both teachers and students. The findings indicate that the two teachers show a big contrast in terms of their writing practices. One teacher embodied the textbook with traditional approach and adopted translation activity whereas the other teacher tried to have creative self-expression approach with the textbook and workshop activity. The students tended to adopt classroom-based writing practices that might suit their purposes or goals in learning of writing in English. The findings provide an in depth understanding of the teaching and learning of writing, the role of teachers, and students’ purposes in EFL writing classrooms. It also suggests that the teacher needs to consider students perceptions by actively talking about relevant issues.