论寿险营销中消费者态度的强化与转变

寿险公司要在未来的寿险市场占有一席之地 ,必须更多地去了解消费者的态度 ,并清醒地认识到现状 ,进而有效地制定出相应地强化和转变消费者态度的营销策略     

完善中国消费者权益保护法的思考

《中华人民共和国消费者权益保护法》是一部以消费者为主体 ,以消费者权利为核心 ,保护消费者利益的专门性法律。该法最基本的特色就是它以对消费者是弱者的认同为视角 ,构建了在消费生活领域为消费者提供全方位特殊保护的机制。但随着我国加入WTO ,该法却暴露出它不适应现实经济生活、不适应消费者保护的客观要求以及落后于国际消费者权益保护立法的诸多的缺陷。完善该法应当以进一步凸现“以人为本”的价值取向为立足点 ,健全相关制度 ,充实相关规定。     

Impact of inflated perceptions of financial literacy on financial decision making

We examine whether inflated perceptions of financial literacy affect financial decision making. Gaps between objective financial literacy and self-reported (perceived) financial literacy (blind spots) predict 19 financial behaviors better than age, gender, income, ethnicity, marital status, self-employment status, and general education levels. Only two predictors, perceived financial literacy and financial education, carried similar levels of predictive power on financial behaviors. Those with inflated perceptions of financial literacy are more likely to miss mortgage payments, receive a collection call, use informal debt, and have poor banking behavior. Those without blind spots make better financial decisions. The differences between those with and without blind spots are more pronounced among individuals with higher education and income.     

Urgency and engagement: Empirical evidence from a large-scale intervention on energy use awareness

We study how to foster engagement in the energy sector, where signals about consumption are opaque and infrequent. We evaluate an energy company's large-scale communication campaign for promoting natural gas self-reading. Self-readings allow utilities to bill customers on the basis of real - as opposed to estimated - consumption. Exploiting variation in campaign messages, we test the impact of imposing a sense of urgency on customers through a deadline for submitting a meter reading. We find that messages that induce a sense of urgency are twice as effective than generic messages in encouraging self-readings, consistent with recent research on the urgency effect. The increased sense of urgency moves to action customers with both high and low levels of baseline engagement; the effect is stronger on the former.     

#wheresRey: feminism,protest, and merchandising sexism in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The blockbuster film Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) earned over $2 billion dollars at the box-office worldwide and became a cultural phenomenon. Produced by media giant Disney, The Force Awakens also generated huge merchandising sales and earned over $9 billion within a year. The film’s main protagonist, Rey, was heralded as a strong, feminist-influenced heroine that capably carved her own space within the male dominated Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, the inherent sexism of the film’s marketing strategy meant that Rey was excluded from the merchandising line. Consumers protested Rey’s absence and demonstrated the importance of popular culture within the realm of political protests about gender equality and commercialization, ultimately leading to industrial and social change.     

Cellular Telephone,New Products,and the CPI

Since their introduction in 1983, cellular telephones' adoption has grown at 25%–35% per year. At year end 1997, about 55 million cellular telephones were in use in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) did not know that cellular telephones existed, at least in terms of calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI), until 1998 when they were finally included in the CPI. Omitting cellular telephones from the CPI created a significant bias. I estimate a bias in the BLS estimate of the telecommunications-services index of between .8%–1.9% per year because of the omission of the cellular telephone. Rather than telecommunications-service prices increasing at about 1.1% per year, the correct calculation has them decreasing at about .8% per year. Omission of new goods from the CPI, for significant periods of time, leads to important bias in the calculation of the CPI.     

Dynamic pricing in the presence of consumer inertia

Customer behavior modeling has gained increasing attention in the context of dynamic pricing. As an important behavior phenomenon, consumer inertia refers to consumers' inherent tendency of purchase procrastination and may induce consumers to wait even when immediate purchase is optimal from an objective perspective. This paper studies a dynamic pricing problem for a monopolist firm selling perishable goods to consumers who may be influenced by inertia. We formulate this problem using the finite-horizon dynamic programming approach and derive the optimal dynamic pricing policy. We demonstrate that consumer inertia produces negative effects on firms' expected revenues and optimal prices, which are monotonically decreasing in both inertia depth and breadth. Through numerical illustrations, we further show that the marginal effects of inertia depth on optimal prices and expected revenues are decreasing, whereas the marginal effects of inertia breadth are increasing. Finally we propose some suggestions for firms to influence the level of consumer inertia.     

自媒体时代与青年文化“快消”现象

网络技术的发展和创新开启了自媒体时代，自媒体的兴起是文化“快消”现象的重要推手。文化“快消”行为又促进着自媒体的快速发展，两者紧密相关、相互促进。作为自媒体的使用主体——青年群体在自媒体传播方式的情境下不仅享受着快速高效传播的便捷，也自觉不自觉地参与到文化“快消”的盛宴中。要传承优秀的中华传统文化、建设社会主义先进文化，必须大力发展青年文化事业和文化产业，从外部环境和内部因素入手，对自媒体加以规范并充分利用，引导和推进青年群体自觉传承和发扬优秀传统文化，创新和发展先进文化。     

Parental style,parental practices,and socialization outcomes: An investigation of their linkages in the consumer socialization context

This study aims to generate insights into the mechanisms through which parental style influences adolescent consumer socialization. Toward this end, it examines two alternative conceptual frameworks: (1) The mediation model which posits two key dimensions of parental style (responsiveness and demandingness) as antecedent variables affecting adolescent consumer socialization directly and indirectly through parental socialization practices and (2) the moderation model which posits each parental style dimension as a moderator of the link between parental socialization practices and adolescent socialization outcomes. The influences of maternal and paternal parental styles on adolescent socialization outcomes are investigated separately and compared. Results provide stronger support for the mediation model. They also show that mothers’ parental style and practices are more influential than fathers’ in shaping adolescents’ consumer socialization outcomes.     

Applying demographic analysis to store site selection

This case study illustrates how applied demographic analysis can help structure business decisionmaking. We screened every one of several thousand square miles within metropolitan Southern California to identify the 10 best locations for a large supermarket catering to onestop shoppers. Locations were selected based on potential sales volume (irrespective of nearby competitors), future stability of the resident consumer base, and specific demographic factors likely to enhance sales potential among target shoppers (e.g., dual-earner families). The client placed as much importance on how the results were derived as on our recommendations. As a result, our analytic framework for comparing high-potential locations played a central role in structuring the client's thinking. This framework, together with the empirical analysis, illustrate how applied demographers can operationalize business questions about consumer markets and guide a client toward a more systematic way of reaching decisions.This article is based on a paper presented at the 1987 Population Association of America Meetings, Chicago, USA.