Siding with the underdog: is your customer voting effort a sweet deal for your competitors?
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Siding with the underdog: is your customer voting effort a sweet deal for your competitors? Angeline G. A. Nariswari 1 & Qimei Chen 1
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract In this research, we explore the negative consequences of engaging customer participation through voting mechanisms. Specifically, we draw attention to the double risk of customer voting, first by identifying the adverse effects of losing, and then by revealing the potential of turning an already engaged set of customers over to underdog competitors. We first establish that the losing effect is distinct from that of a voting (empowerment) effect (Pilot Study). We then replicate the losing effect and show that losing (as opposed to winning) voters tend to experience stronger levels of disempowerment and identify more with the underdog (Study 1). Finally, we demonstrate that losing voters are more likely to choose a competitor brand over the incumbent brand, particularly when the competitor is perceived to be an underdog (Study 2). Our findings caution brand managers to reconsider their customer engagement strategy when it involves customer voting. Keywords Customer participation . Customer voting . Consumer empowerment . Underdog brand . Winners . Losers Everybody loves the underdog and wants them to win, unless you just happen to be playing against the underdog – Stephen K. Shaw
1 Introduction Following the recent customer-oriented trend in marketing, an increasing number of firms have invested large amounts of resources to encourage collaborative value Both authors contributed equally to this work.
* Angeline G. A. Nariswari [email protected] Qimei Chen [email protected] 1
Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Mark Lett
creation between the firm and the customer, particularly through voting mechanisms. M&M’s Global Color Vote, for example, involved ten million people around the world in selecting the color purple as a temporary addition to the color-coated chocolate candy mix (CNN Money 2002). Lay’s Do us a Flavor campaign invited customers to submit their best potato chip flavor idea for a chance to win $1 million or 1 % of the flavor’s whole year sales—whichever is greater (Durisin 2013). In each of these instances, customers are given the opportunity to vote for their top choice based on a pre-selected set of finalists. Usually, the chosen outcome is then made available for public purchase. While voting-related campaigns aim to give customers a sense of empowerment to influence company decisions (Fuchs et al. 2010), in every voting opportunity, there are those who succeed to influence the final outcome, and others who fail (Xie et al. 2008). In other words, voting results in winners and losers. Pointing to the adverse effects of losing established in the fields of psychology, sports, and political science (Standage et al. 2005; Wilson and Kerr 1999), the current study questions whether all voters are equally empowered (Fuchs et al. 2010). Our assumption is that, compared to
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