Women in Business Branding: Consumer Behavior Based on Hedonic vs. Utilitarian Positioning
Class
Article
Department
Management
Faculty Mentor
Deanne Brocato
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
Starting in 2009, big name companies like Walmart, Ex-IM Bank, and Toyota have begun initiatives to promote women-owned business enterprises. Women-owned businesses have seen unprecedented growth and market presence in the past decade. In response, Walmart has pledged to source $20 billion in goods from women-owned businesses by 2016. Walmart began using the "Women-Owned" business logo (WOB) that was developed by a partnership between the Women's Business Enterprise National Council and Women Enterprise Connect International. As with country of origin labeling (Made in USA, etc.), this new logo was designed to be a differentiator for qualified products from their competition. However, since the initial Walmart WOB study in 2009, few recent studies conclude the effectiveness of a WOB logo for consumer products or services. The focus of this study is to provide consumer buying behavior information to women business leaders and potential distributors of WOB labeled products or services. Also, to explore what types of product and services would benefit most from a WOB label. The study will be conducted by surveying 300 diverse participants through Amazon's Mechanical Turk compensation system. Participants will complete randomly selected question banks pertaining to either products or services described as either a hedonic or a utilitarian offering. Each of the prompts will also indicate if the product or service is women-owned, men-owned, or non-specified. The hypothesis for this study is that there will be differences in consumer buying behavior dependent on the nature of the product, the gender of the participant, and also the ethnicity of the participant. By analyzing the results of the study, women owned businesses will be able to target the right consumers and market their product or service to optimally affect buying behavior.
Start Date
4-9-2015 2:00 PM
Women in Business Branding: Consumer Behavior Based on Hedonic vs. Utilitarian Positioning
Starting in 2009, big name companies like Walmart, Ex-IM Bank, and Toyota have begun initiatives to promote women-owned business enterprises. Women-owned businesses have seen unprecedented growth and market presence in the past decade. In response, Walmart has pledged to source $20 billion in goods from women-owned businesses by 2016. Walmart began using the "Women-Owned" business logo (WOB) that was developed by a partnership between the Women's Business Enterprise National Council and Women Enterprise Connect International. As with country of origin labeling (Made in USA, etc.), this new logo was designed to be a differentiator for qualified products from their competition. However, since the initial Walmart WOB study in 2009, few recent studies conclude the effectiveness of a WOB logo for consumer products or services. The focus of this study is to provide consumer buying behavior information to women business leaders and potential distributors of WOB labeled products or services. Also, to explore what types of product and services would benefit most from a WOB label. The study will be conducted by surveying 300 diverse participants through Amazon's Mechanical Turk compensation system. Participants will complete randomly selected question banks pertaining to either products or services described as either a hedonic or a utilitarian offering. Each of the prompts will also indicate if the product or service is women-owned, men-owned, or non-specified. The hypothesis for this study is that there will be differences in consumer buying behavior dependent on the nature of the product, the gender of the participant, and also the ethnicity of the participant. By analyzing the results of the study, women owned businesses will be able to target the right consumers and market their product or service to optimally affect buying behavior.