Marketing and Smart Technologies

Booking cancelation has a significant impact on hotel management and on the hospitality industry in general. According to some authors, an important portion of hotel revenue loss stems from not considering cancelations in booking systems. Besides, very little is still known about the reasons why customers cancel their bookings, or how this can be effectively avoided from happening. Keeping this in mind, personal name record (PNR) data, which were collected by a hotel partner, were used to design a model to forecast hotel-booking cancelations, which achieved 74% of accuracy. The benefits of the proposed method go beyond such good rate of detection: It only considers 13 different, independent variables, which is a reduced number compared to previous works in the field. Moreover, the included variables coincide with those requested from customers during the hotel reservation process. This is an advantage for hospitality establishments, given that these variables are often the only ones available. Our method allows knowing the cancelation rate with good accuracy, but it can also identify those customers who are likely to cancel their bookings. This approach could be an asset for organizations, as it assists them in improving their action protocols regarding incoming tourists.

This paper examines how marketing managers’ perceived explanation quality differs between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human recommendations. The results of this experimental study extend previous studies on managerial decisions by demonstrating that participants’ perception of the explanation quality differed between AI and humans. The explanation behind human advice was perceived as less satisfying, needing more information about the recommendation. In contrast, receiving an AI-generated advice positively changed their perception of the explanation quality. They perceived the explanation as more sufficient without the need for further clarification. These findings contribute to understand the individual perception of the explanation quality of AI-generated recommendations. Including explainability of AI in the decision process is important for building user trust. Thus, this paper is intended to stimulate further research on the use of AI for managerial decisions in marketing, particularly examining the importance of explanations in the decision process to improve AI acceptance.

This paper presents the results of evaluating the number of service offerings marketed on company webpages in the field of advanced manufacturing performed by human annotators, artificial intelligence imitating human behavior, and advanced in-depth AI analysis. The research focuses on ten different countries and three specific sectors: manufacture of computer, electronic and optical product, manufacture of electrical equipment, and manufacture of machinery and equipment. Even though artificial intelligence was able to find more services on company webpages than human beings, the average number of services identified on webpages proved to be relatively low. Companies from selected industries focus mostly on product lifecycle services, such as spare parts, repair services, or maintenance. On the other hand, the least marketed services are in the field of finances, such as pay per use and installment payment. The results support the applicability and effectiveness of artificial intelligence tools in the field of procurement. Moreover, the findings are highly relevant for companies in the field of advanced manufacturing as they indicate a great potential for further improvement of service promotion on company webpages.

The intensity of human–artificial intelligence (AI) interactions has been growing at a rapid pace. Research has acknowledged a simultaneous significant resistance on the part of users towards AI services on the one hand and a profound acceptance of AI solutions on the other. As a remedy for this ambiguity concerning AI delegation, the author takes the next step to explain the decisive relevant factors. This research introduces the concept of the human emotional state driving the motivation for AI-based task delegation. Precisely, the affective state, as a function of the two independent neurophysiological systems of valence and arousal, determines the motivation for AI delegation in the individual decision situation. The interplay between these two determinants of a human’s affective state results in a four-quadrant taxonomy on AI delegation. For instance, a combination of low arousal and negative valence results in an affective state, which motivates the human to decide in favour of AI delegation; an opposite emotional state of high arousal and positive valence yields a low incentive to apply AI services. The implications of the present research provide novel reasons for the presence and extension of AI services in the fulfilment of human tasks.

Accelerated development of open-access, web-based information systems is an important driver of social and economic change in knowledge-based economies. Specifically, learning platforms and knowledge repositories employing modern AI tools (AILPs) strongly influence human resources management in academic institutions and corporations. AI-based information systems require efficient alignment of business models to the deployment of digital technologies, where platform marketing plays a crucial role. This is why building an appropriate marketing and exploitation strategy is fundamental in achieving the desired economic impacts of AILP operation and exploitation, and for financial decisions concerning further AILP development. This paper presents the methods and final outcomes of collaborative roadmapping as part of an exploitation and marketing strategy and user community building plan for an AILP implemented within a recent Horizon 2020 project. Platform marketing activities have a hierarchical structure. They touch upon the platform as a whole, the platform as a learning tool for its users, as well as may aim at licensing some of its stand-alone software components. The overall strategy has been composed of individual and joint activities. The strategy-building methodology consists of generating alternative action plans, evaluated by multiple criteria. The compromise action plan can be adaptively modified according to user preferences and stakeholder needs. Finally, we will present how the roadmapping diagram was built and assessed to yield a realistic strategy.

With technological advancements, product functionality and durability often exceed the standard that consumers require, and there is little difference between brands. This implies that competitiveness between brands is shifting to emotional value, such as design and usability, from functional value. The importance of emotional value is now recognized, and companies increasingly focus on the value creation. Despite improved design and usability, products may seem similar from the consumer’s perspective, and it becomes difficult to enhance their perceptions of product value. This may be attributed to the ambiguous concept. Design and usability are effective means of embodying value, but these are not the essence of value. Consumers who attracted to superficial features like design will easily switch brands when another product with a more fashionable design appears. If a consumer remains loyal to a brand, it is because they understand, sympathize with, and value the brand’s concept. However, few studies have focused on brand concept as a factor of loyalty. Accordingly, the present study hypothesized that consumers who recall a brand concept are more likely to exhibit loyalty than consumers who recall specific features, such as design and usability. It was evaluated the four brands loyalty factors—concept, design, usability, and technology—for Apple's MacBook, which has a strong brand in Japan. The results showed that the concept effect was the largest, proving that concept management is crucial for building and growing a strong brand. Hence, the concept recall index should be emphasized in brand management.

It is common for people to choose their next movie or show through other viewers’ experience statements, like the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) presents. In this paper, we will be inspecting the IMDb public datasets, processing them, and using a visual analytics approach to understand how a movie can be successful among its fans. The main exploration focus is regions where titles are translated to, how the success of a title relates to its cast, crew, and awards nominations/wins. We took a methodology based on hypothesis formulation based on the EDA exploration and their testing based on a visual analytics confirmation.

The restaurant and service industry is a very important contributor to the global economy and the Thai economy. In particular, small restaurant in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, accounts for 41.78% of the total restaurants in the country. However, these sectors are vulnerable and susceptible to the COVID-19 outbreak. This research aims to report the impact of COVID-19 on small restaurants and consider the rapid short-term measures that restaurants are taking in response to the crisis. It is based on the latest fact-finding surveys to provide real-life solutions to problems. This research collected data from 290 respondents from small restaurant business via interview by telephone. We found the level of impact was directly related to sales and staffing rates, including making decisions about the business status as well as the rapid response of restaurants depending on consumer behavior, society, and technology to increase sales and reach consumers in this era.

Good communication between media and National Public Police is one imperative contrivance in thought-provoking in consumers. Yet, communicating processes to date have been conditioned by the unique phenomenon associated with the type of information provided by police. Problems in communicating involve unbalanced, disruptive, unproductively, and disenchantment opinion of police activity. By probing the external communication that bond depictions of media support to consumers’ reactions, this research addresses the elements which fundament an improved communication plan to incorporate the legitimacy and fairness of the communication, reliability, and the representation of media, to support the adjustment of the conception of police mission and values in the media and social vicinity. Using the Delphi method, the authors built a model in which an alliance and a crossover effect between past and present fundament the creation of gatekeeping narratives, information messages, dissemination accurateness, and educational proactive approaches, structuring a co-creative environment. The research offers a substantial contribution to the reflection of the managers and may be a powerful element of guidance to enhance the success of interaction between the main stakeholders. This approach develops a model that sustains an idiosyncratic communication framework for determining the content, form, style, and sequence of transmission and reception.

The security of data is an essential aspect for organizations because today’s most significant trade-off is information. Although assuring information is safe is the most critical aspect for organizations, there are other concerns about making information secure. Encryption is very used to protect data, but what are the costs in terms of performance? According to Gomes et al. (Database encryption for balance between performance and security, 2021 [1]), encryption has a significant impact on database read and performance. The impact of encryption in different databases was tested using PostgreSQL and MongoDB. We wanted to understand if it was more beneficial to use encryption at the client side (PostgreSQL) or Rest (MongoDB). The results have shown that using encryption at Rest improved the performance of the inserts in the database.

Several systems today produce enormous textual, numerical, geospatial, structured, and unstructured data. This data may serve many business requirements, which implies specific performance requirements. These requirements typically make it imperative that the application uses the most efficient means to store and retrieve it. In the past, systems architects would implement SQL relational databases systems (RDBMS). Still, today, the advances of NoSQL and document storage technologies offer a high-scalable non-relational database that can process and store vast amounts of that with high performance and efficiency. Mixing the traditional relational databases with the new databases creates a database system model capable of serving the different business needs. This paper proposes to create a stream architecture capable of feeding the same data to other database systems based on open-source technologies such as Apache Kafka, NoSQL database, time series database (TSDB), relational database, and document indexing engine. The implementation will handle massive incoming data from processed network traffic traces that will be ingested to several databases through the stream architecture.

With the rapid increase in cloud computing, big data, and web applications in real time, there is a great need to turn to database platforms that can handle and process large volumes of data, with high performance and excellent scaling capabilities. Since its creation, this has been one of the main goals of NoSQL databases. This article will cover three of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB, Couchbase, and CouchDB. We will take a more theoretical approach to each database and compare them using the OSSpal methodology.

In this research, a GAP analysis of the ATM service architecture was carried out; as a starting point, the current architecture of the ATM service was analyzed, identifying each of its components that make it up, to determine which components are suggested to be maintained, modified, and eliminated, to reduce the points of failure in the ATM system. In addition, the architecture of the ATM service was analyzed through a technical security procedure based on the good practices of the international Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) regulation. For the present study, a documentary and field research was carried out with data collection techniques such as the structured interview in which the Delphi method was used with 2 iterations, and this method was carried out to obtain efficient communication by the interviewer and the interviewee. In the first iteration, certified experts in computer security were interviewed, and in the second iteration, experts certified in the international PCI DSS standard were interviewed. The instrument used was a checklist, where compliance with the PCI DSS controls focused on the security of the ATM architecture service was evaluated. The results showed that thanks to the implementation of the GAP analysis, it was possible to determine improvements in terms of the diagram that makes up the architecture of the ATM service. In addition, through the technical procedure of the security analysis, the vulnerability of the medium and informative risk level was found. Finally, thanks to the implementation of the checklist and the interview, relevant information on the technological security of an automated teller machine (ATM) was obtained.

The benefits recognized by integrated systems, integration, and information quality are beginning to prove insufficient to support decision-making and organization competitiveness. In this context, there is a marked growth of business intelligence (BI) systems, recognizing their analytical capacity and data integration. However, BI implementation projects bring to light two relevant technological critical success factors (CSFs): systems integration and information quality. This article reports the implementation of a BI project in a higher education institution. This project corroborates the literature highlighting the relevance of the technological CSF in achieving a successful BI implementation. Some recommendations to overcome difficulties regarding the technological CSF are also proposed.

Increasingly public administrations provide their data under the open data umbrella. It is necessary to develop tools that take advantage of the full potential of new information resources. In this work, we developed a package for R that provides a collection of functions to retrieve, download and manipulate the dataset available by the Canary Institute of Statistics (Instituto Canario de Estadıstíca, ISTAC) through the ISTAC BASE API. In addition, a Shiny web application was designed for the improvement of tourism information to Lanzarote. The collected data in this Shiny web application is related to demand and supply of tourism in Canary Islands and especially in Lanzarote.

The main objective of search engine optimization (SEO) is to present the most relevant information to the user, so that his necessities may be satisfied. Therefore, it becomes imperative to understand and be familiarized with the constant developing algorithms, on what mainly concerns the variables it gives the most importance to. In this article, an in-depth explanation is presented, from a basic to a more advanced level, of the internal and external variables required for a good positioning of website pages, enabling them to escalate in the search engine results page (SERP). Such holistic approach is useful, so that the reader, using the most appropriate techniques and tools, may be one step ahead of the remaining competition.

User-generated content posted on social media reveals users’ reviews based on their own assessments. Bookings of peer-to-peer accommodations have increased in the last decade, and research is needed to better understand tourists’ experiences. Based on 1 million online reviews posted in Airbnb, this study combined a text mining analysis and statistical analysis of online reviews to evaluate whether the emotions expressed in online reviews and the rentals’ attributes explained the online ratings. Our findings suggest that emotions and attributes influence online ratings. However, the type of emotion as well as its intensity affected online ratings differently. Furthermore, online reviews in English had higher average scores than reviews in Spanish. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the antecedents of online ratings generally.

This study aims to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the hotel sector and to identify the current traveler demands. The traveler’s reviews were analyzed based on sentiment analysis and a guest satisfaction model was also proposed, demonstrating a data mining approach within tourism and hospitality research. Given its popularity, TripAdvisor was the chosen platform for collection of hotel reviews in London and Paris. Text data were extracted from reviews made in two time periods, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sentiment and specific aspects highlighted by travelers were compared between each period.

The tourism sector is one of the most affected by the health situation caused by COVID-19. As a result, digital transformation is accelerating in this sector. One of the pillars of this transformation is the management of organizations based on data-driven decision-making. The raw material for such data-driven strategies is obviously the sources of information used. This paper attempts to give a knowledge map of the diverse sources of information used in tourism for this decision-making. To this purpose, we analyse the scientific publications of the last five years in order to identify the main areas of action related to the sources used for data-driven management in tourism. As a result of this bibliometric analysis, we have identified 14 topics that have attracted the interest of the scientific community grouped into three main areas of action.

The overarching aim of this paper is to define, develop and present a processing pipeline that has practical application for companies, meaning, being extendable, representative from marketing perspective, and reusable with high reliability for any new, unseen data that generates insights for evaluation of the reputation construct based on collected reviews for any (e.g. retail) organisation that is willing to analyse or improve its performance. First, determinant attributes have to be defined in order to generate insights for evaluation with respect to corporate reputation. Second, in order to generate insights data has to be collected and therefore a method has to be developed in order to extract online stakeholder data from reviews. Furthermore, a suitable algorithm has to be created to assess the extracted information based on the determinant attributes in order to analyse the data. Preliminary results indicate that application of our processing pipeline to online employee review data that are publicly available on the web is valid.

This paper analyzes the role of price in the consumers’ pre-purchase expectations and post-consumption evaluations. The researchers observed, in the Steam platform, how promotional discounts can lead to fluctuations in user recommendations for discount products. Applying the change point analysis method for the observation of longitudinal data, the results indicate that temporary discounts can disrupt the stable process of word of mouth generation. There is a significant effect on the volume of reviews posted for a product shortly after the occurrence of a discount and also variations in review scores that can be either positive or negative.

Cough identification using DSP techniques in an audio signal is a complex task; thus, an artificial intelligence approach is proposed by applying machine learning, deep learning, and HMMs algorithms. Later, an ensemble learning model has been used to differentiate cough from other environmental sounds, putting those algorithms together and choosing the best result as the performance of the system. The final system consists of a preprocessing stage where the audio signals are adjusted through data augmentation, normalization, removal of silent fragments, and the transformation to Mel spectrograms, while, on back-end stage, three models have been evaluated: a convolutional neural network, a random forest, and a classifier based on hidden Markov models. We assembled a hard voting classifier (VC) model from the three models to obtain a more robust and reliable model. The VC model reached the highest precision and F1-score values without false-negative and up to 75% of true-positive values.

Big data integrates and evaluates large amounts of data collected by a company, which when crossed, allow obtaining indicators that contribute to visualize and improve organizational management in the internal and external environment of a business. The area of communication, marketing and advertising knowledge has been widely benefited by the use and exploitation of data, makes it possible to make intelligent decisions when proposing strategies that are better targeted and adapted to a specific target audience and to objectives specific to the organization, among others, to attract and/or retain consumers or customers; and, evaluate trends and new business opportunities—innovation—to ensure the sustainability of the business. Working under a data mining approach brings additional value and is that the actions implemented can be evaluated in real time or very quickly to improve their effectiveness. The main objective of the study is to demonstrate the criteria according to the experience of those responsible for communication and marketing of companies in Ecuador according to the ranking of the magazine Ekos Business 2019 and the opinion of experts in big data and communication, on the advantages and benefits of big data in the management of the strategic communication of organizations. The results show that, in Ecuador, the use of big data is being adopted for the development of better business and strategic communication strategies.

This paper presents a method for the evaluation of attribute significance for the prediction of customer profitability. The proposed approach is based on the support vector regression (SVR), compared to most previous studies, which were based on a subjective managerial assessment. The analysis was conducted on two datasets—one with a smaller and another with longer prediction horizon. Results of this study point to Recency Frequency Monetary (RFM) variables as the particular attribute group significant for the profitability prediction, in comparison to the customer response modeling, where customers’ web log data are proven to be dominant factors in previous research. Additionally, out of the three purchasing behavior variables, Monetary attribute showed superior influence in short-term profitability prediction, while its significance is almost equated with Recency and Frequency variables in the longer prediction horizon.

The rapid growth of the industrial sector and population causes waste problems in Indonesia. The government began implementing regulations to limit the use of plastics. However, this effort needs support from both consumers and companies. Consumers are expected to adopt sustainable consumption in their daily life, and companies are urged to involve environmental sustainability in their strategy. Thus, green products appear as one of the possible solutions for reducing environmental sustainability issues. This study aims to analyze factors that could influence green product purchase intention for generation Y and generation Z in Indonesia. Generation Y and generation Z were known for their concerns toward the environment, and they are potential current and future consumers. Therefore, it is essential to understand their consumption behavior. This study is based on the theory of planned behavior framework that was extended with additional variables, namely environmental concern, environmental knowledge, willingness to pay premium, moral attitude, and health consciousness. Data were collected by distributing questionnaires to 349 respondents adopting purposive sampling approach. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The result reported that all variables, except environmental concern, have positive influence on purchase intention.

The subject of this paper is data streaming in IoT crowdsensing systems. The goal of this paper is to present a way of designing a scalable IoT crowdsensing system that enables design of various business models for smart city projects. The system designed in such a way is capable of handling an increasing number of users while maintaining acceptable performance. Performance of the system can be measured in response latency, which allows for real-time tracking of crowdsensing parameters. The first part of the paper deals with data streaming concepts and software solutions, with a particular focus on Apache Kafka. The second part presents the designed system for crowdsensing in smart city environments. The designed system allows for use of mobile and Arduino devices as input data for the Kafka cloud cluster in order to provide crowdsourcing insights in real-time. The primary way that users can utilize these insights is through a web or mobile application, where various data visualizations can be presented. The development of a system based on the proposed model can allow for easy access to recent crowdsourced data, and real-time smart city indicators such as air pollution.

The implementation of certain smart classroom services in the educational process makes it possible to increase the efficiency and quality of the teaching process, as well as the level of competence of students, with low financial investments and a short process of teacher training. The application of the Internet of Things and mobile technologies improves the quality of teaching, making it more interesting for students, thus technologies have significant potential for improving teaching and learning in all educational sectors. The advantage of this way of working is in the application of mobile technologies that students already use. Organizing the teaching process in smart learning environments enables quality and faster communication of students with teachers, active participation of students, and a better type of teaching as well as the efficient exchange of information in the teaching process. The research presented in the paper aims to point out the possibilities of improving the learning process in secondary education by applying pervasive technologies. The proposed model was evaluated with secondary school students.

Digital communication has had a strong impact on the development of society. Investing in multimedia to produce original content as a means of promotion of a company has become crucial. The creation of multimedia content for social media platforms, the existence of a website, and the dissemination of information in digital format is an essential criterion to inform the mission, goals, products and services that a company intends to provide to its current or potential customers. The definition of a digital marketing strategy is central to give visibility to the company and strengthen the relationship with its target audience. The main purpose of this paper is to present the digital marketing strategy of “Alpha” (assumed name)—a Portuguese technology company specialized in Internet-related services and products. For this purpose, data were collected from a qualitative survey applied to companies, in the same sector of activity. The aim of this study is to understand and to identify the methods, procedures, and tools that companies are using to promote their services. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the CEO of the company intending to understand the company’s perception about the key factors to elaborate a digital marketing strategy. Findings based on the questionnaire and on the depth interview indicated that most of the participant companies have developed a digital marketing strategy. This study reinforces the idea that complementing market analysis based on digital marketing with the production of content through multimedia technologies provide benefits for the company’s success.

The daily stress we, as population, are subjected has negative impacts on physical and mental health, making people age faster. With the increase in life expectancy, the population started to search for ways to ensure they reach the older ages with a healthier and better lifestyle, resulting in an increase of interest and demand for thermalism and wellness tourism. Although thermalism is recognized to have several benefits with regard to the combat and prevention of certain pathologies, this has not yet been fully proven. So, in this paper, we presented a sensing system, capable of not only recording thermalist’s biometric data, but also getting the data ready and prepared to be processed by any analytic tool with the aim of showing the impact that this sector has on the health of its practitioners.

This paper intends to demonstrate results on applying machine learning algorithms to process image recognition to identify professions. This kind of project points us to a relation between humans and machines, so in a way, we might say that the human brain and vision process are being passed to a machine in order to bring us many benefits in our daily life. In this paper, we decided to compare how different parameters influence the performance and accuracy of the following neural networks: EfficientNetB0, NASNetMobile, MobileNetV2, ResNet50, InceptionV3, and DenseNet121.

This chapter proposes a mobile application aimed at improving the decision-making process through conscious stimulation of the prefrontal cortex using a smartphone application. It is expected to be useful for adolescents and young adults, considering the brain maturation and important decisions taken at this stage, which can have positive or negative consequences. The research design followed consists of a longitudinal descriptive study. The positive perception and social reception of the prototype should be considered as results. Finally, the demand analysis and its results are presented.

Neuromarketing is an innovative branch of neuroscience that seeks to provide for the consumer’s wishes through the understanding of its brain structure, which will allow to comprehend and develop products or publicity that can be more attractive, new and attached to what has been created. Neuromarketing is integrated in this new digital age in an extraordinary way due to it having more opportunities to be applied. This science can be observed in each ad, which makes the individual feel the need to spend money on a product. Big companies have benefited from this almost-magic formula that allows the emotion and reasoning behind each purchase. Thanks to neuromarketing, each product could be attractive enough in the neuro-sensory aspect for it to be consumed, science being the only needed thing. This investigation provides the knowledge on the reason why it is one of the most researched sciences by the producer nowadays.

The unique selling proposition (USP) as a major distinctive feature has been studied in various marketing researches. Our study uses sensory evaluation, a method introduced in many studies employing neuromarketing, to uncommonly examine the USP. As an example, Czech wines with the PDO designation called VOC were selected. The sensory evaluation was complemented by price analysis and qualitative research. First, the price analysis that included 805 Czech wines showed that the VOC wines are less common on the Czech market and have higher prices than substitutes without the VOC. Second, the blind sensory evaluation done by 103 wine consumers underlined the relative perception of wines and their USPs. The VOC was not perceived as a decisive attribute for consumers choosing from the VOCs and non-VOCs. The absence of USPs for VOCs from the consumers’ point of view shows the relative perception of USPs by various agents (producers, consumers). Third, the semi-standardized interviews with 15 volunteers from sensory evaluation explored consumers’ expectations regarding VOC wines. The experienced consumers matched the VOCs with distinctive terroir and taste, i.e., possession of USP, which opposed their actual sensory perception. We believe that the consumers’ sensory evaluation should be an elementary part of marketing research, including creating food product’s USP.

Organizational innovativeness and firm’s abilities to innovate rely exclusively on team efforts, culture for innovation and senior management support, all these organized into a structured process. Organizational innovativeness has a variety of manifestations, elements, and sub-processes for cultivating and gathering individual and group abilities for the development of innovations within the organization. It represents a separate and parallel innovation process to the traditional innovation development process. The organization of this process and its digitalization as well as building long-term and continuous improvement through innovation mind-set is a challenging exercise for enterprises. In this study, we present a case study with the platform GAPideaz—an enterprise Web system for organizing and digitizing a simple innovation process encompassing all employees of an enterprise and focusing team efforts for the purpose of innovation development and problem solving. Major research and practical gaps in this organizational innovation effort are identified and addressed. The study contributed to the analyzed platform to precise its process and users target and to some of the users involved in the study to better organize the impact of the platform for organizing innovation across their enterprise.

The world is headed towards a new normal, while pandemic is continuing with new waves hitting nations. However, this storm will pass, but the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come. It is crucial to use new research perspectives bringing scientists and practitioners together to support decisions that would shape our future. This paper gives an example of consumer neuroscience and predictive analytics helping to go beyond rational verbatims to investigate real deep nonconscious convictions that people may not even be fully aware of and which cannot be covered by traditional opinion surveys. For example, public confidence in the healthcare system is related to pro-social behaviour and compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions during a crisis. The success in controlling pandemics depends on behaviour, and health officials need to persuade the population to make behaviour changes to ensure success. By providing comparative results from Portugal, this study highlights what changed in one year and what the population is not willing to admit by using the “COVID-19 Fever” project data collected and analysed with the iCode Smart Test in 2020 and 2021 and offers valuable data to support an effective communication strategy.

The music industry has undergone a significant transformation from physical to digital consumption. This change has altered the sales strategies of products, allowing consumers to purchase them before their market launch. This paper analyzes the effect of pre-order adherence on the digital music platform Bandcamp, basing on the influence of price, number of supporters and their interaction on purchase intention. The sample of this behavioral study was supported by a total of N = 41 individuals, with an average age of 26.34 (SD = 6.279). Seven-point Likert scales were used to record each participant’s level of interest and likelihood to purchase in the face of the stimuli presented to them. For the presentation of forced stimuli, we used 30 layouts of the Bandcamp platform, divided into six conditions = three price levels and two levels of number of supporters to which we wanted to verify their effect on the interest and purchase intention of the experiment subjects. Results show that the number of supporters is a significant predictor of purchase probability and that this probability is higher when participants are in the presence of many supporters. Regarding price, the effect that was expected did not occur, and the low price was not significantly more appealing. Interestingly, the medium price was the least appealing, and the high price was almost as appealing as the low price.

360° technology for images or videos allows the covering of a 360° vision angle in two axles (X and Y), and it can be seen on a screen in an interactive way. This means that we can see everything that is around the point where the picture or video was taken, up, down, in front, behind and the sides, which allows us to reproduce the stereoscopic human vision. In this article, the usage of this technology is proposed as a tool to enhance the touristic marketing area, giving the users an innovative expérience.

Digital marketing is essential for hotels. It is important to have a social media strategy and, simultaneously, to be aware of the guests’ opinions and reviews, be conscious of their satisfaction. In this sense, the content, and interactions of the different social media of Vidago Palace Hotel were analysed, and some suggestions for improvement were given. On the other hand, the hotel reviews in the main online review platforms were analysed, to understand the level of guest satisfaction. The results show that there should be more care at the social media strategy level, posting with more frequency. However, the reviews are excellent, which shows that the quality of service provided by the hotel. The exploratory nature of the study is one of its limitations, added by the fact that is based on a specific date that analysed its last 10 publications.

Website is a bridge between users and online information. It is extremely important in terms of marketing and must be designed according to the rules of usability, especially in hotel industry. Websites with high usability value will be accessed by more users. Therefore, building a useful website is important. This study aims to evaluate, from the point of view of usability, the websites of hotel establishments in Terras de Trás-os-Montes, a region located in the north of Portugal.

In this paper, the authors analyzed 6 selected websites of Polish agritourism farms using the WebQual questionnaire to determine their quality factors. The conducted analysis involved remote study with users’ participation. The factors, which were taken under consideration during the analysis, focused on the functionality, usability, and aesthetics of the websites. The analysis was conducted according to WebQual method and used its questionnaire form. The main objective of the paper is to answer the question about the quality of the websites of agritourism farms in Poland.

The knowledge of tourism consumer behavior is essential for destinations and tourism organizations to improve their offer, acting as one of the main ingredients for the development of memorable experiences. The spatial–temporal tracking of tourists is one of the techniques associated with the knowledge of consumer behavior and which allows valuable information to be obtained. On the other hand, the demands of tourist consumers are increasing, which make it even more important to have a better knowledge of them. In this context, this study aims to present the traditional and modern methods of tracking tourists that could be used for the improvement of the tourism offer. To this end, a methodology of comprehensive literature review and state-of-the-art verification was adopted, to identify the main tracking techniques in the spatiotemporal behavior of tourists. It is concluded that these techniques should be used together, as they complement each other. Given the constant technological advances, this theme has the potential to be further developed in terms of literature, recommending future empirical research on the phenomenon.

Web 2.0 has allowed collaboration, interaction and sharing of information online, such as online review platforms. Consequently, these short and straightforward opinions have increasingly proved to be essential sources of information not only for consumers but also for companies, as they represent the consumer's sincere evaluation, free from any kind of bias. In this sense, there should be an interest in the analysis and monitoring of online reviews by companies, as the result of these actions may provide guidelines to readjust their strategy, support decision-making and ensure the satisfaction of their consumers. To generate useful information to assist decision-making and strategies’ implementation by retailers in the Municipality of Porto, online reviews from the GoogleMyBusiness platform were organised, classified, and analysed. 9945 online reviews were extracted, directed to 246 retail adaptations of the Municipality of Porto, from 2017 to 2020, which were later classified by the polarity of sentiment (positive, negative, neutral, or mixed). Sentiment analysis was conducted, combined with statistical tests and frequency distribution tables to discover relevant information for retailers. With sentiment analysis, retailers can understand their consumers and their behaviour to adapt their strategies and make the right decisions to ensure their customers’ satisfaction. With the results obtained, this study proves that it is possible to extract useful information from online reviews and reveals that it is still an area of little interest for retailers in the Municipality of Porto.

The tourism sector is undergoing an accelerated digital transformation, augmented by the current pandemic, and tourists must adapt to this new environment. There are many options for digitalisation in the tourism sector and their success depends on the grade of tourist satisfaction. Not all options work and, from a marketing point of view, it is important to know this grade of satisfaction in order to be able to offer the technological experience that the tourist expects. In this context, assessing which technological option is more important than another is a complex decision problem. In this type of problem, the AHP model, an analytical and hierarchical decision-making process, has been used successfully and is extensively recognised. The goal of this paper is to offer an adaptation of the AHP model on the TAM, a model that measures the grade of user satisfaction of technology, to find out the grade of tourist satisfaction towards the technological alternatives used in tourism.

In the context of the current requirements regarding the modernization and the development of tourist destinations in order to remain competitive and attractive for the modern tourist, the use of new technologies becomes an urgent necessity, representing a reality of the present and especially of the future. People’s attitudes on the use of emergent technologies in tourism varies from stakeholders to practitioners and tourists. In this respect, a mix of qualitative marketing research based on semi-structured interviews was conducted with practitioners. The results of the study highlighted on the long-term positive attitude of tourism practitioners towards the use of new technologies in tourism, especially during pandemic and the positive effects on the development and modernization of tourist destinations. On the short-term, an ambivalent reaction probably due to the technological and digital “binge” during pandemic was registered. The practical implications of the results for the stakeholders imply that the abrupt and salient use of digital services and new technologies could provoke on the short term an ambivalent response from users. The paper also offers suggestions for future research directions.

Tourism is a sector where social networks are vital for business communication. This study aims to explore the motivations and objectives of Algarve tourism businesses to use social media. A questionnaire was conducted to a sample of companies linked to the tourism sector, and 101 responses were obtained to achieve the objective. Based on the results obtained, it was concluded that most of the companies studied use social networks to communicate, especially Facebook. The main reason for this type of company to use social networks is to present services to a larger number of potential customers. The low-cost associated with social networks does not emerge in the study as a relevant factor. Companies that do not use social media do so due to a lack of interest and technical resources.

Continuous growth and improvement of digital solutions have created new achievements that have penetrated into all aspects of life and all industry areas. Tourism, as the industry that combines and uses products and services from a large number of other industries and sectors, has faced a lot of challenges in adopting new technological advances. In this context, tourism applications are increasingly being offered, diversifying the possibilities of destinations and improving the optimization of all their resources. Digitization of cultural heritage can greatly contribute to its preservation and promotion. In particular, World Heritage Cities (WHCs) are under the constant pressure from dynamic tourist flows, and further, the development of mobile tourism applications can help urban heritage conservation. Spain, as a country with 15 cities proclaimed WHCs, represents a valid and diverse resource for studying the development of tourism applications. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the offer and main features of tourism applications at the national level in order to identify proposals for their improvement. Finally, a Digital Eco Tree Platform for mobile applications for WHCs is proposed to increase the effectiveness of these technological solutions in tourism.

Augmented reality (AR) technology is becoming increasingly important not only to consumers, but also to brands and businesses. The growing demand for unique and innovative experiences is facilitating its fast growth. One of the current market challenges is to understand how AR technology can develop consumer–brand relationships. Thus, this paper aims to propose a conceptual model that helps to better understand the relation between the usage of augmented reality and the development of brand love. Qualitative methodology was utilized in this study. Data were collected through a focus group, and content analysis was performed. Results showed that there is a positive correlation between the usage of AR and the development of brand love. At the academic level, this paper presents an integrated framework about the relation between augmented reality, brand love, and its dimensions. At the enterprise level, it provides key insights to managers and marketers that enable an alignment of the brand–consumer relationship through the incorporation of AR.

Augmented reality (AR) is shaping a new environment for marketers, playing an essential role in consumer choice. AR seems to be a good solution for undecisive online shoppers. However, their implementation in the physical store can also play an important role in both the purchase decision and in increasing the number of consumers visiting the shop. AR allows potential consumers to virtually try-on products and imagines how they would look on their face, through technologies such as Virtual Try-on. From a qualitative perspective, this research aims to explore perceptions of AR and then differentiate between the use of Virtual Try-on from the smartphone and the use of Virtual Try-on in the physical shop through mirrors. Through two focus groups, composed of women from two generations (generation X and generation Z), we found a greater acceptance of the use of AR on smartphones in a private context, with a certain rejection of its use in a physical shop. In general, there is a rejection of the use of AR mirrors in the physical shop due to the lack of privacy during use. However, these problems could be solved by choosing the right location in the shop. Also, the presence of staff who can help and advise during use seems to be of interest. Concerning to the use of Virtual Try-on on mobile phones, there is a certain mistrust that the shades shown are not the real ones, which is the main problem identified.

Immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, could be effective marketing tools for destination marketing, namely in creating place attachment prior experience the destination. Place attachment plays a significant role in behavioural intentions to visit and to recommend a destination. However, place attachment research is relatively new in the tourism context. This study seeks to empirically examine the effectiveness of Virtual Reality in creating place attachment to destinations exploring the changes in the place attachment after two moments. First, after watching a video and after having an experience in the Virtual Reality environment. Second, after the experience in the Virtual Reality environment and after the ‘real’ visit to a representative viewpoint in Douro region. Students belonging to Gen Z were sampled. Findings reflect that Virtual Reality has potentialities for marketing destinations.

Recently, the advertising industry has implemented new methods to improve the relationship between brands and their consumers. To understand how to achieve this effect in a positive way, several studies have turned to the examination of advertising actions aimed at boosting brand experience. However, there are few studies that deepen the knowledge of the importance of creating brand experiences through innovative communication technologies such as virtual reality (VR). The present research explores how the use of VR in advertising helps in the generation of brand experiences. A qualitative methodology of phenomenological design was used with advertising professionals in the city of Lima. In addition, the exploratory scope of the analysis followed a descriptive coding process. It was evidenced that the properties of VR, such as immersion, presence, and its sensory capabilities are crucial to promote brand experiences with greater intensity. This category of virtual brand experiences influences brand image, affects purchase intentions and, above all, builds brand loyalty.

The tourism sector has gained increasing importance in the economy of many regions, or even countries, however, the way in which organizations and territories communicate and promote each other, to attract tourists, significantly impacts the success of the sector, and digital marketing strategies have stood out as promising. Thus, in a digital society, in which information and communication technologies are present in the daily life of the general population, especially mobile technologies, it is essential that the tourism sector seeks innovative and differentiating marketing and communication strategies. When considering the technological advances, which have been asserted lately, wireless communication networks with high bandwidth, processing capacity of mobile technologies, Internet of Things, Big Data, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Empowered Smart Cities with different technology; it can be said that the conditions are in place so that new paradigms and marketing strategies can emerge. These technologies allow to communicate with the target audience in a more impactful way and stimulating different senses, that is, immersive. It is in this context that the opportunity and motivation for the development of this research work arises. In this sense, this work highlights the technologies that we consider most relevant, combining them in a conceptual model that is proposed and that we consider enhancing an immersive and innovative digital marketing strategy, for the promotion of touristic destinations.

This investigation exhibits a real study of the influence of color in a digital promotional product—social coupon. The paper’s goal is to analyze the perception of color in graphic design, through the analysis of consumers’ responses. Following the design-science research (DSR) approach through the development of the artifacts—social coupons—the emotional influence of color was studied during the literature review. Then, according to the DSR, the main problem was divided into iterative cycles, in order to build and evaluate the artifacts designed to meet the identified business need. After the development of innovative artifacts, a digital promotional product was tested and redesigned, according to the user's perceptions. Consumers prefer colors that are associated with positive emotions and find tranquility and safety the most related to blue color, sophistication to black color, comfort to white color, brown as the most boring color, and red as the color which captures more of their attention. This study brings new insights to brands, with the development of a new framework and with its exploration about the emotional triggers of colors in the design, determining how to best capture consumers’ attention and how to bring more pleasant experiences to them.

Several authors have determined concepts related to the inclusion of social problems in advertising. One of them is brand-cause fit, which refers to the condition in which a brand and a social problem—with which the target audience feels identified—are conceptually united in a single communication proposal. The purpose of this study was to analyze how university students perceive the brand-cause fit as a communication strategy in Sprite's “You Are Not Alone” campaign. A qualitative methodology was adopted and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 university students of which 12 belonged to the LGBT community and 12 were heterosexual. The participants positively perceived the brand-cause fit used as an advertising strategy in Sprite's campaign. Not only do they value the fact that brands include social issues and problems in their communication, but they also claim that it is the brands’ responsibility to do so.

Whilst authors in the marketing literature have made some qualitative suggestions that aggressive consumer-to-consumer interactions (i.e., bullying) negatively affect users’ social media experience, there is no quantitative evidence to substantiate such propositions. Moreover, several studies emphasize that large brands such as Nike and Coca Cola are reluctant to get involved when consumer interactions turn hostile. Applying text mining techniques from computer science to a novel phenomenon in marketing, this paper aims to provide a quantitative overview of the prevalence and impact of bullying in online brand communities, and the potential effectiveness of brand responses. To this purpose, we scraped data from the official Facebook community of 14 retail brands (e.g., Lidl, Tesco) for a 3-month period, analyzed the content and sentiment of consumer comments that classified as bullying, and ran t-tests to measure the impact of a brand response. Analyzing a total of 49,866 comments, our findings offer detailed insights on the average bullying rate for retailers’ online brand communities and significant variations in bullying between these retailers. Furthermore, we show that bullying has a largely negative emotional impact on community users, and that a brand who responds to bullying can cause a substantial, positive sentiment shift. We thus offer theoretical and managerial contributions to the novel and under-researched ‘dark side of social media’ in the digital marketing literature.

The food retail market is very competitive. All players race against time to gain a competitive advantage over others. It is in this competitive environment that Continente launches a brand of innovative food products, Continente Food Lab. This new brand enters the market as a wager of Continente and SONAE MC in food innovation, however, it encountered some challenges in that same market, the main one of these challenges being its identity and the way in which it is perceived by consumers. If Continente Food Lab sees itself as a brand of innovative food retail products, consumers tend to perceive Continente Food Lab as a brand of healthy and organic products, which can bring some problems, with unfulfilled expectations on the part of consumers who wrongly expected to be buying healthy or organic products and a consequent loss of trust on the part of the consumer toward the brand. The purpose of this case study is to understand how the Continente Food Lab brand can overcome this problem of brand myopia it burdens. More specifically, this case study aims to define the attributes of the brand triangle that lead fast-moving consumer goods clients to perceive Continente Food Lab as an innovative food retail brand.

The most renowned brands worldwide incorporate initiatives in their business approach that seek equality between genders in society. Nonetheless, brands in their advertising campaigns, gender remains stereotyped in the roles men and women play, which can be considered harmful to society and therefore unethical. Such discrepancy appears even in the same intervention generated by advertising specialists who define and design the communication of these brands. Therefore, this study seeks to identify the arguments used by Peruvian advertising professionals to justify the use of gender role stereotypes within the advertising discourse from an ethical perspective. A qualitative approach was selected as the research method for this study. In-depth interviews with 16 professional advertisers from different areas in charge of producing this type of communication. The lack of knowledge about the actual dimension of the harmful gender stereotypes impeded a debate to leave without arguments to those who believe that the use of stereotypes is ethical. Professional advertisers have lost part of the necessary connection with ethics and find it hard to deal with these dilemmas because they do not identify the damage caused by gender role stereotypes in society.

During the last decade, the development of new technologies has revolutionized the operational models of the food retail sector. Despite the endless opportunities created by exponential technological growth, it has been increasingly challenging for companies to provide exceptional customer experiences. In this highly competitive context, retailers have been investing on shopping experiences that integrate technological environments to enhance and personalize the customer journey and also to optimize their operations. In addition, customers are very aware of their buying habits and, more than a simple purchase, they want to connect with brands. Thus, this research focuses on the consumer experience in the co-creation of a new and disruptive Sonae MC brand—Continente Labs—in which an analysis of the consumer experience in the online community was carried out. Through a qualitative exploratory methodology, we used netnography to analyze the participation and dynamics of the consumer in the Comunidade Labs platform. With regard to the customer cooperation platform at Continente Labs—Comunidade Labs—this study demonstrated customers increasing willingness to participate in co-creation processes, in the context of the firm’s strategy to attract customers. In this sense, through the study of the user experience in the online community, it was possible to explore and understand the experience of the collaborative consumer in a disruptive retail environment, which is developed through engaging, and personalized, experiences, allowing to connect customers and the brand, in order to satisfy their wishes.

Recent research suggests that marketing has been losing influence on some company’s strategic decision-making and has been increasingly employed at a tactical level. Additionally, technological advancements in media and communications have been pointed out as being drivers of this “tactification” of marketing. Within this phenomena, we are particularly interested in understanding how brand management is being regarded in large organizations. Thus, we set as purpose for our research to explore how brand management is currently being practiced in large organizations, with a particular concern for understanding their strategic role in these companies. To this end, we have developed a qualitative study, where data were mainly collected through in-depth interviews to top managers. We have studied how three large organizations structure the marketing function and what roles brands assume within their strategic endeavours. Our findings unveil important insights on the role of brands in the practice of marketing at both strategic and tactical levels, laying ground for future research.

The aim of this investigation is to understand the Harley-Davidson (HD) brand community members in Portugal and its consequences on their behaviors and brand loyalty. Throughout this work, it is mentioned how the HD brand developed the brand community, becoming an appealing brand for freedom lovers. This research focused on 429 members of HD brand community in Portugal. The methods used to analyze data were a descriptive data analysis, the chi-square independence tests, the chi-square automatic interaction detector (CHAID) model and the binary logistic regression. The results show that brand communities provide to its members the experience of integration with others, reinforcing brand loyalty. The merchandising and accessories purchase by brand community members is also reinforced.

This article aims to identify the success factors for Website strategies of independent luxury fashion designers to communicate their brands and to foster lasting relationships with customers. The article includes an empirical study with 14 Portuguese luxury fashion brands designers that combine Website analysis and interviews with its managers. This study evidences the difficulties that Portuguese luxury fashion designers face in communicating the differentiating elements of a luxury fashion brand in digital channels, particularly product characteristics, luxury atmosphere, service personalisation, and the intimacy enabled by brick-and-mortar stores. The findings highlight the difficulties in strengthening online customer relationships, and those omnichannel strategies are essential to preserving luxury products’ differentiating features and elements.