Published papers

Though relationship between amounts of consumer knowledge and information search is one of the most important topics in consumer study, existing models suggest extremely contradictory hypotheses. The contradiction may be caused by mixed use of different concepts. This paper builds a new causal model which contains various kinds of knowledge concepts and information search concepts, and empirically examines the validity of the model in comparing with the existing models.

'Brand is recently dealt as a key concept of marketing study, which just means product names and the other useful elements to identify the product(s) to the others, or product(s) with the name or elements. One of the reason why brand attracts both scholars and practitioners might be the following statement by a pioneer of modern brand research: “?”. Then, what makes the phenomenon occur that while some products with a specification and a name are sold more, the other products with the same specification and the other name are sold less? Various answers are possible to this question: some answers are made with existing ideas in marketing study; the others are made with new ideas. Modern brand researchers could have played a role not only of unifying existing theories but also of bringing evolution to marketing theory. However confusions occurs due to variety of the answers, it hardly develops any marketing theories with a key concept of brand. This paper identifies “brand strength from advantage of attributes,” “brand strength from advantage of information giving,” “brand strength from advantage of attribute perception,” “brand strength from advantage of benefits”. And by describing the various brand strengths under a theoretical framework, modern brand researches are put in order on the one hand, and it is suggested the framework should be expanded on the other.'

Though relationship between amounts of consumer knowledge and information search is one of the most important topics in consumer study, existing models suggest extremely contradictory hypotheses. The contradiction may be caused by mixed use of different concepts. This paper builds a new causal model which contains various kinds of knowledge concepts and information search concepts, and empirically examines the validity of the model in comparing with the existing models.

'Researches on diffusion of innovation (new product), such as E. M. Rogers, confuse the two roles of communication when making innovations spread: “sending and receiving of information” and “forming and reacting to the social meanings of innovation (new product)”. In preceding paper, the author formalized Rogers’ profiles of five adopters’ categories from the former view point of “sending and receiving of information”, and construct a theoretical model to deduct both the time of new product adoption for each consumers and the pattern of new product diffusion in the social system. In contrast, this paper focuses on the latter view point of “forming and reacting to the social meanings of innovation (new product)” to try to do the similar formalization. This paper discusses not only diffusion theory but also economist Leibenstein’s Bandwagon/Snob Effect, psycologist Fishbein’s Act-Intention Model, economist Veblen’s Conspicuous Consumption, sociologist Simmel’s Trickle-Down Theory, all of which are reexamined in a multiattirubute-utility brand-choice model. In the end of the paper, Rogers’ profiles of adopters’ categories are formalized from the view point of “forming and reacting to the social meanings of innovation (new product)”, and a theoretical model similar to the preceding paper are constructed.'

'The diffusion research of new products in marketing discipline has two serious problems: On one hand, it is not strongly linked to the other areas in the discipline; and on the other hand, cited works from the other disciplines tend to do only sketching various events and not to examine the logical validity of the relationship among the events. This paper focuses on the multiattribute-utility model of brand choice and Bass model of diffusion as a research approach and on the E. M. Rogers’s works about adopter categories as a research object. And, through computer simulation, the paper describes relationship three groups of components; (1) speed and pattern of diffusion and maximum level of penetration in a social system, (2) timing of the first adaptation by each adopter, and (3) adopters’ profiles (adopter characteristics) sketched by Rogers.'

'“Customer satisfaction” is a main concept in marketing, which have been studied from 50s up to now from views of sellers and buyers. However, existing studies have two serious problems; some concepts of “satisfaction” which meanings are different from each other are mixed, and hypotheses about the connection between “satisfaction” and the relevant concepts lack logical validity. In order to get over the difficulties with existing studies, this article will identify and redefine four types of “satisfaction” in a brand-choice model based on the multiattribute approach, and then, logically discuss the validity of some main hypotheses on “satisfaction”.'

'Though the concept of consumer involvement is expected as a key concept for better understanding of buyer behavior, it come to a standstill due to the definition problem, and hypotheses concerning it have no logical validity or consistency with each other. This paper discusses the semantic controversy on the consumer involvement concept, and reexamines both definitions and hypotheses of the concept on the basis of the multiattribute approach. The following analyses make a contribution to refining the concept framework of the multiattribute approach, as well as provide implications on various topics, such as three constructs of product involvement, relationship between product involvement and brand commitment and relationship between product involvement and purchase involvement, substitution among advertising, information search and trial buying, two interpretation of the peripheral route in the elaboration likelihood model, relationship between consumer knowledge and involvement, relationship between perceived risk and information search. '

'This study examines the following three topics, in an attempt to construct a comprehensive theoretical model of marketing which makes it possible to integrate divided areas of marketing studies. First, a conceptual framework of “exchange”, which can be seen as a core of the theoretical model of marketing, is discussed, based on the reconsideration of a series of controversies over the broadened concept of marketing. Second, the existing product-differentiation models describing “marketing transactions” are reviewed. The models have been contributed to the construction of the foundation of the comprehensive theoretical model, which have the concept of “exchange” at their center. Third and the final part of this paper examines ways to incorporate the concept of advertising into the product-differentiation models, while maintaining the fundamental framework of “exchange” which the models describe.'

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Japanese animation, anime, has long been regarded as a niche culture reserved for anime otaku in Japan. The word anime otaku refers to individuals who spend most of their time alone at home, watching anime. However, in recent years, prototypical anime otaku have changed their behavioral patterns, resulting in a new movement called anime pilgrimage. Anime pilgrimage involves traveling to locations that resemble particular scenes in anime pieces, even though the locations themselves may be ordinary places. The authors constructed two models to describe the determinants of visit intention and destination loyalty based on research into ordinary and film tourism. The results suggested that, during the pre-tour period, otaku are motivated by the desire for interaction with other otaku and the wish to visit a new location. Moreover, they are also seeking to interact with the local people, and such experiences result in higher destination loyalty during the post-tour period.

According to previous research, consumers with low self-esteem are likely to evaluate clothing items lowly when they try them on and find that they are inferior to the attractive advertising endorser wearing the same items. However, advertisements with attractive endorsers are generally used with an expectation to have a positive product evaluation from customers. Assuming that there are two types of self-esteem, body esteem and status esteem, we hypothesized that consumers who are low in status esteem evaluate a status-related product more positively than consumers who are high in status esteem when their consumption aligns (vs. when it does not align) with an attractive endorser even though they are low in body esteem. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a laboratory experiment. The result of multiple regression analyses showed that our hypothesis was supported. The findings have important implications for marketers in terms of product evaluation.