Turning a commodity into an experience: the “sweetest spot” in the coffee shop

Materialism has been given great attention in the consumer behavior literature. How materialistic tendencies are shaped by advertising has also been documented. Yet, the impact of consumers’ materialism on their perceptions of ads is not clearly understood. The goal of this research is to examine the relationship between an individual’s materialism and his/her perceptions of various kinds of advertising. Using four specific advertising appeals (i.e., interpersonal, prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related), attitudes toward the ad, and thoughts elicited by the advertisement were measured and compared across high and low materialism groups. Significant differences were found between respondents from the two groups with respect to the evaluation of each type of appeal. When prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related appeals were used in advertising, they were evaluated more favorably by consumers with high levels of materialism than by consumers with low levels of materialism. In contrast, advertising that used an interpersonal appeal was viewed more favorably by consumers with low levels of materialism. The results of this research provide implications for marketers on three perspectives: the furthering of our conceptualization of the materialism construct, the design of promotional communication for specific target markets, and the public policy dimension of targeting consumers more vulnerable to certain appeals.

This paper reviews the literature on energy consumption behavior for both domestic and migrated/displaced population and aims to recommend crucial policy measures for creating awareness on the energy efficiency. Consumers’ adoption to the efficient usage of energy varies depending on demographic, behavioral and situational dynamics in their households and societies. The regional or national strategies to implement efficient technologies for the consumer engagement are crucial to change their behaviors. Migrants affect the energy usage patterns in the host country due to their different usage behaviors. Any type of measures for migrated population should include available, acceptable, accessible and affordable energy efficiency applications to engage them with the domestic population.

Millennials and Generation X (Gen-X) are the fastest-growing market segment in Indonesia. The study aims to discover the salient values of those generations and to investigate their value differences. Data were obtained via questionnaires from 200 respondents of each generation. The questionnaires measure the importance of the values of each generation, consisting of nine values from the List of Values established by Kahle (1986), namely Sense of belonging, Excitement, Being well respected, Fun and enjoyment, Security, Self-fulfillment, Self-respect, Warm relationships with others, and Sense of accomplishment. This study employed factor analysis to identify sets of values representing their underlying values. This method resulted in three inherent values of Gen X and two of Millenials. Gen X shows the importance of Achievement, Family enjoyment, and Social relationship. Meanwhile, the Millennials are conspicuous by the values of Social recognition and Self-pleasing. Companies that choose Gen X as their target market can use their above-mentioned values to be expressed in their marketing strategies. Meanwhile, those who choose Millennials may use the two inherent values of this generation. This study fills a research gap on the characters of the emerging young generation segments in the country that can be adopted to generate market segment characters in the country.

Acknowledgment
This work was funded by a research grant from the Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia.