14.6 Key Terms

Accelerator Effect: Like rats in a maze, consumers speed up, or accelerate, purchases when they are about to reach a higher award level in a loyalty program. 14.2

Attitudinal Loyalty: The degree to which the customer prefers or likes the brand. 14.2

Behavioural Loyalty: The customer buys the product regularly and does not respond to competitors’ offerings. 14.2

Blocker Effect: Is related to switching costs. The blocker effect works this way: The personal value equation of a loyalty program member is enhanced because he or she doesn’t need to spend any time and effort shopping around. And because there is no shopping around, there is no need for the member to be perceptive to competitors’ marketing communications. In other words, the member of the program “blocks” them out. Furthermore, the member is less deal-prone, or willing to succumb to a special offer or lower price from a competitor. 14.2

Bot: A kind of program that performs automatic functions online. 14.4

Buzz: The amount of word of mouth going on in a market. 14.1

CAN-SPAM Act: Prohibits the use of e-mail, faxes, and other technology to randomly push a message to a potential consumer. 14.4

Cause-Related Marketing: Can foster attitudinal loyalty among a company’s community of customer. Companies that engage in cause-related marketing choose causes that are important to the customer communities in which they operate. 14.2

Commercial Code (UCC):  A group of laws that govern commercial practices in the United States. 14.4

Communication Gap: Overstating the offering’s performance level, thereby creating unrealistic expectations on the part of customers. 14.3

Community: A social group that centres its attention on a particular brand or product category. 14.1

Cross-Promotion Marketing: Can foster attitudinal loyalty among a company’s community of customers. Companies that engage in cause-related marketing choose causes that are important to the customer communities in which they operate. 14.2

Horseracing Community: The cross-promotion creates credibility for the new member, just as you are more likely to accept a recommendation from a friend. 14.2

Customer Satisfaction: The feeling that a person experiences when an offering meets his or her expectations. 14.3

Deal-prone: Willing to succumb to a special offer or lower price from a competitor. 14.2

Delivery Gap: Failing to meet the performance standards established for an offering.   14.3

Dump Accounts: E-mail addresses they use whenever they need to register for something online. 14.4

Expressed Warranty: An oral or written statement by the seller regarding how the product should perform and the remedies available to the consumer in the event the offering fails. 14.4

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: Of 1999 requires financial institutions to provide written notice of their privacy policies. 14.4

Implied Warranty:  An obligation for the seller to provide an offering of at least average quality, beyond any written statements. 14.4

Influencer Marketing: Targeting people known to influence others so that they will use their influence in the marketer’s favour. 14.1

Influencer Panel: The type of community in which the influencers participate regularly in marketing research activities. 14.1

Knowledge Gap: Not understanding the customer’s expectations or needs, which then leads a company to create a product that disappoints the customer. 14.3

Longevity Effect: Lengthening the lifetime value of a customer. 14.2

Loyalty Programs: Marketing efforts that reward a person or organization for frequent purchases and the consumption of offerings. 14.2

Phishing: Soliciting personal information in order to steal an identity and use it to generate cash fraudulently. 14.4

Postpurchase Dissonance: Occur when an expensive product is purchased, the buyer purchases it infrequently and has little experience with it, and there is a perception that it is a high-risk purchase. 14.3

Privacy Policies: Statements regarding how a company will use and protect a consumer’s private data. 14.4

Privacy Laws: Laws limit the amount and type of information a company can collect about a consumer and also specify how that information can be used or shared. 14.4

Spam: A term for unwanted commercial e-mail similar to junk mail. 14.4

Social Media: Online communication among interdependent and interconnected networks of organizations, people, and communities. 14.1

Social Network: Social networking is viral marketing, or the spread of the company’s message (like a computer virus) through the community. Some companies have enhanced the viral marketing of their offerings with interactive Web sites that might feature, say, a game built around an offering. 14.1

Spam: A term for unwanted commercial e-mail similar to junk mail. 14.4

Spreader Effect: The fact that members of a loyalty program are more likely to try related products offered by the marketer. 14.2

Standards Gap: Setting performance standards that are too low despite what is known about the customers’ requirements. 14.3

Sugging: Any form of selling under another guise or a phony front. 14.4

Switching Costs: The costs associated with moving to a new supplier. 14.2

Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) : a group of laws that govern commercial practices in the United States. 14.4

Viral Marketing: The spread of the company’s message (like a computer virus) through the community. 14.1

Warranty: A promise by the seller that an offering will perform as the seller said it would. 14.4

Word of Mouth: The passing of information and opinions verbally, has a powerful influence on purchasing decisions. 14.1