A relational approach to direct mail consumption

European Journal of Marketing A relational approach to direct mail consumption: The perspective of engagement regimes Simon Françoise Lynda Andrews

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A relational approach to direct mail consumption

Approach to direct mail consumption

The perspective of engagement regimes Simon Françoise


EM Strasbourg Business School, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg Cedex, France, and

Lynda Andrews School of Advertising, Marketing, and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

1527 Received 5 April 2014 Revised 31 October 2014 10 November 2014 21 March 2015 Accepted 31 March 2015

Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to investigate how direct mail consumption contributes to brand relationship quality. Store flyers and other direct mailings continue to play a significant role in many companies’ communication strategies. Research on this topic predominantly investigates driving store traffic and sales. Less is known regarding the consumer side, such as the value that consumers may derive from the consumption of direct mailings and the effects of such a value on brand relationship quality. To address this limitation, this paper tests a causal model of the contribution of direct mail value to brand commitment, drawing on a value framework that integrates social theory of engagement regimes and literature on experiential customer value. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical work of this paper is based on a rigorous four-study mixed methods design, involving qualitative study, confirmatory factor analysis and partial least squares structural modeling. Findings – The authors develop two second-order formatively designed scales – familiar value and planned value scales – that illustrate the role of engagement regimes in consumer behavior. Although both types of value contribute equally to direct mail attachment, they exert contrasting effects on other mediational consumer responses, such as reading and gratitude. Finally, the proposed theoretical model appears to be robust in predicting customers’ brand commitment. Research limitations/implications – This study provides new insights into the research on consumer value and brand relational communication. Originality/value – This study is the first to consider consumer benefits from the social perspective of engagement regimes. Keywords Brand attachment, Customer value, Brand commitment, Brand gratitude, Engagement regime, Relational communication Paper type Research paper

Despite the movement of many firms to electronic media as their mode for direct marketing, store flyers and other forms of direct mail remain a ubiquitous and important communication channel for many brands and retailers (Godfrey et al., 2011; Gázquez-Abad et al., 2014; Luceri et al., 2014). Traditionally, direct mail, which encompasses all types of printed matter sent by a brand or a retailer to a customer in his or her letterbox, has been used to stimulate sales, notably by means of promotional appeals. Recently, however, firms have expanded direct mail use to maintain customer relationships by including this form of communication in their relationship programs,

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such as encouraging and retaining customer loyalty (Luceri et al., 2014) or favoring informational and brand or retailer-image enhancement content in their mailings (Mimouni-Chabaane et al., 2010; Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011). It is acknowledged, however, that direct mail does not always enjoy a positive response from consumers. There is evidence of significant dislike, with people increasingly using No Junk Mail stickers on their mailboxes to avoid such promotional material (Baek and Morimoto, 2012; Liebig and Rommel, 2014). Academic literature also suggests that, even consumers who do not use the sticker and who may have given permission to receive direct mail can be irritated under certain circumstances. Examples include too much direct mail clutter or excessive use by a firm or competing firms, such as charities (Elliott and Speck, 1998; van Diepen, Donkers, and Franses, 2009). In the digital direct mail channels, evidence suggests irritation is present for both Internet and mobile mailings, leading to avoidance behaviors (Baek and Morimoto, 2012; Morimoto and Chang, 2006). However, in comparison studies between digital and traditional direct mail, irritation is less evident with the traditional than the digital channels (Baek and Morimoto, 2012). Overall, sending direct mail can result in irritation and negative effects and marketers need to be careful when using this communication channel (Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011; Godfrey et al., 2011). Even in the light of consumer annoyance and increased use of No Junk Mail stickers, recent industry reports show a moderate but continuous rise of direct mail expenditures, suggesting there is value for firms using this form of promotion. For example, in the USA, where direct postal mail accounted for approximately one-third of total expenditures in direct marketing, marketers spent $45 billion to send 87 billion pieces of postal mail in 2013, with both numbers representing slight increases over their 2012 counterparts (Direct Marketing Association, 2014). In France, expenditures for unaddressed direct mail, of which two-thirds constitutes store flyers, have increased each year from 2008 to 2012 (ARCEP, 2013). According to Mimouni-Chaabane et al., (2010), Miranda and Konya, (2007) and Gázquez-Abad et al., (2011), store flyers alone represent a substantial portion of retailers’ communication budgets to promote new products, communicate price specials and announce new stores. Overall, direct mail not only contributes to firm profitability through promotional calls for action, but can contribute to what is referred to by Gázquez-Abad et al. (2011) and Godfrey et al., 2011) as brand relational communication, that is, personalized communication with existing customers as part of a broader relationship marketing strategy. Direct mail’s prominence in companies’ communications notwithstanding, this area remains under-researched in marketing literature (Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011, 2014; Luceri et al., 2014). Many studies focus on direct mail’s ability to drive store traffic and purchasing behavior (Miranda and Konya, 2007; Godfrey et al., 2011; Kalyanara and Phelan, 2013; Luceri et al., 2014). What is less well researched is the determinants of consumer attitudes toward direct mail and the effects of its consumption on brand relationship quality (Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011). As a result, little is known about the dimensions of value that direct mail generates for the targeted audiences beyond its functional or economic utility. Although some studies have shown that direct mail may provide consumers with value such as escapism, entertainment, novelty or monetary savings (Mathwick et al., 2001; Bronner and Neijens, 2006; Danaher and Rossiter, 2011), it remains unclear whether direct mail can also lead to more relational types of value involving forms of social relationships between consumers and their brands.


Additionally, much of the research on direct mail appears to implicitly assume that consulting direct mailing is inherently a form of information search, whether it be goal-directed or exploratory, oriented toward preparing a shopping plan depending on various time horizons and levels of search directedness (Gijsbrehts et al., 2003; Mimouni-Chaabane et al., 2010; Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011). However, consumers’ engagement with a brand communication channel does not necessarily involve a planned action, as referred to by Thévenot (2006), in which individuals are engaged in the implementation of a particular project (see, for instance, Trevinal and Stenger, 2014). Recent research in pragmatic social theory (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006; Jagd, 2011) has advanced the idea that the manner in which individuals coordinate with their social and material environment can be distinguished according to their regime of engagement (Thévenot, 2006, 2007, 2009). In addition to the regime of planned action, individuals may prefer forms of engagement known as the regime of familiarity, in which their sense of well-being will depend on their capacity to customize their intimate surroundings. Therefore, the framework of engagement regimes could be useful in understanding the variety of value types arising from the consumption of direct mail. Against this background, the purpose of this research is to propose a causal model of the contribution of direct mail consumption to brand commitment, drawing on an in-depth examination of consumers’ forms of engagement and the types of value that arise from consuming direct mailing. Our research has four main objectives, taking into account the background information regarding direct mail as part of firms’ promotions spend, as well as such mailings’ potential for irritating consumers. Using a mixed methods design, Study 1 develops a theoretical framework of consumer value with direct mail through in-depth interviews. In Studies 2 and 3, these findings are re-examined using a scale developed for this research to measure the values that emerged in the first study. These three studies focus specifically on consumer values derived from communications received through the direct mail channel. The objectives of the last study are twofold: first, we validate the direct mail’s familiar and planned value scales as two second-order formative scales, and second, we examine whether these two types of value differentially contribute to brand commitment through direct mail-related mediators. To this end, we estimate a structural model to extend previous literature on consumer value and brand relational communication in the direct mail context. Theoretical framing of consumer value and engagement regimes There is an extensive body of literature on how consumers derive benefits from possessions and services. This stream of research notes the multidimensional nature of consumer value (Holbrook, 1999; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001; Sánchez-Fernández et al., 2009), which is also identified in the media literature from the “uses and gratifications” school (Rubin, 2009) and from brand communication channels (Mathwick et al., 2001; Hausman and Siekpe, 2009). These conceptualizations are generally consistent with a view of consumer value creation ingrained in usage, socially constructed through experiences and relying on the integration by the customer of the resources and processes provided by a firm (Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Edvardsson et al., 2011; Zainuddin et al., 2013). More briefly, consumer value can be seen as a “value-in-use”, that is, subjectively experienced benefits derived not from the object itself but rather from the relevant consumption experience (Holbrook, 2006). Following the meaning of the

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value-in-use notion, Grönroos and Voima (2013, p. 137) propose a theoretical value framework in which value creation is the consumer’s “creation of value-in-use during usage, where value is socially constructed through experiences”. Contingent sources of consumer value from a brand communication channel Consistent with the perspective provided by Grönroos and Voima (2013), which highlights the crucial importance of social context in value creation, we postulate that the nature of consumer value derived from the use of a brand communication channel depends on two contextual dimensions: the social agency of value co-construction and the situational regime in which the consumer is engaged. Regarding the social sources involved in the process of consumer value co-construction, Holbrook (1999, 2006) specifies “self” and “other” as the sole sources of this type of value. In extending this aspect of Holbrook’s conceptualization, we argue that brand has to be considered a particular social agent that intervenes as a major communication partner in the relational exchange mediated by a given brand communication channel. Such a view is consistent with the extant marketing literature. For example, Fournier (1998) proposes that people relate to brands in their life quite similarly to the way they relate to people around them. As outlined by Fournier and Alvarez (2012), process similarities across brand and human relational spaces are consistently supported in the marketing literature. In addition to determining the social aspect of consumer value, understanding how the benefits that consumers derive from a brand communication channel may depend on their situational regime of engagement also may be important. Marketing literature suggests a significant aspect of understanding how customers derive value or benefits is through their engagement with the focal object, which can be an advertisement, or a specific communication channel (Brodie et al., 2011; Brodie and Hollebeek, 2011). As clear conceptualizations of consumer engagement practices leading to the creation of consumer value are still emerging, there is a need for further scholarly inquiry that may involve combining customer engagement conceptualizations with other theoretical perspectives to identify engagement practices that co-create value between the focal subject and object (Brodie et al., 2011, p. 262). To this end, we have extended our consumer values theoretical framework by including two regimes from the theory of engagement regimes (Thévenot, 2006, 2007, 2009) to address the nexus between different types of value and consumers’ engagement practices with direct mail. The architecture of engagement regimes Drawn from pragmatic sociology (see Jagd, 2011), the theory of engagement regimes builds on conventional frames of evaluation to channel the uncertainty weighing on the coordination of behaviors (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006). More specifically, each regime of engagement intends to secure a particular good that allows individuals to reduce uncertainty when coordinating with their social and material environment. In turn, this good will serve as a cognitive format to help individuals adequately grasp the reality of their situation in a manner that will preserve the guaranteed good (Thévenot, 2006, 2007, 2009; Blokker and Brighenti, 2011). From this conceptualization, the architecture of engagement regimes builds on three types of regimes: justification, planned action and familiarity (see Table I for a description of the attributes of each engagement regime).

Attributes

Regime of justification

Regime of planned action

Regime of familiarity

Relevant good

Common good specific to order of worth Characterized by generality and legitimacy Public coordination

Satisfaction generated by an accomplished action Focused on the implementation of individual’s plans Possibility of a communication extended to a “liberal public” Shaping of the environment into means or instruments

Feeling at ease

Form of evaluation


Scope of communication Nature of individual agency

Arrangement of publicly qualified objects

Fragmentary and specific to customized objects or social relationships Restricted to proximate surroundings Customization of the immediate social and material environment

Source: Adapted from Thévenot (2006, 2007, 2009)

According to Thévenot (2007, p. 47), the regime of planned action corresponds to a level of engagement so frequently used by individuals that it could also be referred to as “normal action”. The satisfaction generated by an accomplished plan is the relevant good that characterizes a planned action regime; in our context, this planned action could be making a shopping list, evaluating products before purchasing them or trying to optimize the consumer’s loyalty program from the brand communication channel. Therefore, reality is grasped by individuals through the functional capacity of their material and social environment with respect to the implementation of their plan. In addition to a regime of planned action, individuals may prefer a regime in which what is at stake is ensuring a psychological and material comfort from the customization of their intimate surroundings. Known as the regime of familiarity, this latter form of engagement aims to secure a sense of feeling at ease, this being the idiosyncratic and localized good that qualifies the regime. The well-being experienced depends on the individuals’ capacity to accommodate their immediate social and material environment. In this regime, the format of individuals’ information is fragmentary and specific to personalized objects and social relationships, which are identified through singular clues. Because this type of information is idiosyncratic, it lacks generality and is harder to communicate to people other than relatives. Moreover, the regime of familiarity is assumed to explain individuals’ attachment to intimate objects inasmuch as they are used frequently in socially and materially secure environments. As Thévenot (2001, p. 17) points out, the personality is consolidated by such objects. In a marketing context, this can be viewed as part of the extended self (Belk, 1988). The theory of engagement regimes distinguishes a third regime known as the regime of justification, which is oriented by expectations of a public order and results in forms of evaluation characterized by their generality and legitimacy. Given that individuals’ actions are susceptible to criticism when placed in this regime, individuals are motivated to behave and communicate in a manner that will be publicly justifiable according to particular orders of worth. In our context, this regime would specifically concern those of brand communication channels, which are largely open in public consumer debates, as are virtual brand communities (Muñiz and Schau, 2005). Each regime is delineated by its capacity to be extended to a larger public without putting a constraint on the good being guaranteed by the regime. As a consequence, all


Table I. Attributes of engagement regimes

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human behaviors are not equally able to move easily along the spectrum of the three regimes of engagement, especially when they are located “under the public” scope (Blokker and Brighenti, 2011, p. 383). Such an assumption is at the core of the regimes of engagement theory. From this perspective, some aspects of human agency can be better understood by focusing on the analysis of one or other regime. For instance, a social worker is expected to be extremely attentive to the person’s familiarity regime including his or her familiar attachments (Thévenot, 2007, p. 420). Therefore, identifying the scope of the engagement regimes that are primarily involved in a consumption phenomenon allows a more accurate description of this reality. Theoretical framework of direct mail value domains While acknowledging the potential for reactance to direct mail noted earlier, as very ordinary, ubiquitous objects, direct mailings are characterized by both their everydayness and the type of fragmentary attention, i.e. processing or weightings given to relevant information, that they may require (Gijsbrehts et al., 2003; Luceri et al., 2014). We argue that individuals’ engagement with a direct mailing does not necessarily relate to a planned action, such as responding to a call for action, developing a shopping list or evaluating a product or price offering. When consuming a direct mailing, consumers may also seek to experience feelings of being at ease and secure with the brand or the retailer, as in a familiarity regime. Such a quest is congruent with particular attributes of the medium, e.g. that they are easy to use and are primarily consulted in the privacy of their own homes and in their own time (Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011). It is also in accordance with a sense of familiarity with the brand or retailer, which may evolve into intimacy over time due to the repetitive use by the consumer of the firm’s direct mailings (Lee and Kwon, 2011). However, the characteristics of the direct mail medium that is consulted at home with no immediate possibility to extend the communication to public groups are likely to confine consumers’ engagement to both regimes located under the public scope, that is, the planned action and familiarity regimes. On these grounds, the engagement regimes theory is expected to provide a contingency framework for examining how consumers, depending on the nature of their situational engagement, may derive value from direct mailing use. To summarize our theoretical value framework, we propose that consumer value arising from the consumption of a direct mailing hinges on the two dimensions of social agency of value co-construction (self, other and brand) and engagement regime (planned action and familiarity). By treating each of the two contingent determinants (engagement regime and social agency) as discrete variables and combining them into a 2 ⫻ 3 cross-classification, a six-celled framework of direct mail domains of value is conceptualized (Table II). Given that each value domain represents a logically distinct sphere comprising homogeneous types of value, each has been labeled by a name reflecting the potential domain contribution. Within each value domain, the value themes are meant to reflect the types of values that consumers derive from the use of a direct mailing, depending on their engagement regime and on the type of actors involved in the social coordination favored by the medium’s use. Therefore, consumer value can be either extrinsic or intrinsic (Holbrook, 1999). Specifically, while intrinsic value such as pastime (Lin, 1999; Rubin, 1983) or escapism (Mathwick et al., 2001) tends to no longer exist when the interaction with a medium ends, extrinsic value such as novelty-oriented surveillance


(Lin, 1999) or monetary savings (LaRose and Eastin, 2004; Mimouni-Chaabane and Volle, 2010) has the capacity to be maintained or transferred beyond the time of interaction. Because direct mailings are likely to provide a variety of gratifications, it is expected that many of these can be further understood by being clearly identified as components of one of the value domains.


Model and hypotheses Drawing on the previous theoretical value framework in Table II, this research introduces a conceptual model in which value derived from the consumption of direct mail as a particular brand communication channel can be distinguished according to the user’s situational engagement regime. The value can be either familiar, when relating to a familiarity regime imbued with an intimate sense of comfort and security, or planned, when relating to a planned action regime oriented toward a buying plan. Therefore, our model postulates that familiar value and planned value distinctly contribute to consumer responses that are assumed to be important determinants of brand commitment. The investigated mediational responses regarding the consumption of direct mailings are the following: • direct mail attachment; • reading amount and rereading; and • brand gratitude.

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In the following sections, we formulate specific hypotheses regarding the abovementioned relationships. Direct mail attachment In a consumer context, loss of proximity to an object of attachment creates emotional distress, inducing negative feelings such as anxiety and mourning (Park et al., 2010; Thomson et al., 2005). That is, the more attached an individual is to an object or entity, the more distress he or she feels at the prospect of losing that relationship. Considering the negative effects that may arise from being separated from a given communication channel is particularly relevant in multichannel communications where companies can substitute channels for others, especially digital channels for more conventional ones (Reinders et al., 2008; White et al., 2012). Furthermore, literature regarding attachment theory in psychology has shown that regular and enjoyable interactions are likely to create attachment by preserving proximity to the attachment figure (Bowlby, 1980; Hazan and Shaver, 1994). Similarly, consumer research shows that multiple and positive

Engagement regime Familiarity

Planned action

Self

Social agency of the co-construction of value Other Brand

Communication channel individual accommodation Brand offering individual assessment

Familiar social ties maintenance

Brand domestication

Product buyingdirected socializing

Brand-consumer cooperation and recovery agency

Table II. Theoretical value domains framework

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interactions between organizations and their customers have the capacity to enhance and nourish brand attachment (Kleine et al., 1995; Thomson, 2006; Vlachos et al., 2010). Because consumer value is derived from a number of favorable interactions with the entity, it is anticipated that the construct of direct mail attachment may explain an attachment to the entity, which in this research is a firm’s direct mailings. Therefore, both familiar value and planned value are assumed to be significant determinants of direct mail attachment, leading to the following hypothesis:


H1. (a) Familiar and (b) planned value positively influence direct mail attachment. Reading amount and rereading Some brand communication channels provide information content that is textual, as in the case of e-mails, SMS, social media or direct mail. When using these channels, consumers perform an information search through reading behavior. Consequently, with respect to direct mail, the amount of reading or rereading can be viewed as behavioral manifestations of the intensity of consumers’ information search. Previous research has shown that, regardless of their extrinsic or intrinsic nature, the payoffs resulting from the search process lead consumers to increase their search (Ratchford and Srinivasan, 1993; Monga and Saini, 2009). Given that the value of direct mail for consumers may potentially reflect rewarding information search experiences, it is assumed to explain increased intensity of information search. Moreover, in the consumer search literature, the strength of the desire for information about a good (product) is directly related to the strength of its importance to the consumer (Schmidt and Spreng, 1996) possibly leading to a planned purchase. Therefore, planned value should influence the intensity of information search more strongly than familiar value. That is, consumers who are involved in making a shopping plan and derive value from a direct mailing would tend to more actively search for information (e.g. reading and rereading relevant direct mailings) compared to those consumers engaged in a familiarity regime who primarily seek to experience a sense of emotional and cognitive comfort from the direct mailings without having any definite purpose in mind. Therefore, we postulate the following hypotheses: H2. (a) Familiar and (b) planned value positively influence reading amount (c) with a greater influence for planned than familiar value. H3. (a) Familiar and (b) planned value positively influence rereading (c) with a greater influence for planned than familiar value. Brand gratitude Gratitude is the affective response triggered by the perception that another source has intentionally acted to improve one’s well-being (McCullough et al., 2001). Accordingly, the value that consumers derive from the consumption of a direct mailing reflects perceived benefits that consumers can relate to their brands’ efforts to inform them and act in their favor, for example, through special offers and availability. As a consequence, planned value and familiar value are likely to generate brand gratitude in those who consume direct mailings. Additionally, people may be more prone to experience gratitude when they perceive that a favor is costly to the benefactor and given without regard to role-based obligations (Morales, 2005; Palmatier et al., 2009). This could be the case in the familiarity regime, where value derived from a direct mailing does not match


the company’s anticipated outcome of the offering. Instead, companies indirectly incorporate benefits such as pastime or escapism (Mathwick et al., 2001; Bronner and Neijens, 2006) that do not result from their role-based marketing actions. Additionally, consumers may perceive that companies are not assured of making their investment in direct mailings profitable whenever consumers experience familiar value because these types of value are not related to a buying plan. This perception should also lead consumers to experience increased levels of gratitude (Palmatier et al., 2009) that may arise from this type of engagement with brands through their direct mailings. Conversely, planned value is more strongly perceived as being related to commercial quid pro quo relationships in the mind of consumers. Therefore, we postulate that familiar value will lead to a higher level of brand gratitude than planned value: H4. (a) Familiar and (b) planned value positively influence brand gratitude, (c) with a greater influence for familiar than planned value. Brand commitment Marketing and consumer behavior literature recognizes brand commitment as the focal aim of relationship marketing (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Defined as an enduring desire to maintain a valued relationship (Moorman et al., 1992, p. 316), brand commitment reflects a consumer’s long-term attitudinal disposition toward a brand. Past consumer research suggests that brand attachment, consumer’s investment in the relationship and brand gratitude may be significant antecedents of brand commitment (Thomson et al., 2005; Sung and Choi, 2010; Palmatier et al., 2009). As a relationship-based concept reflecting an emotion-laden bond between a person and a brand, brand attachment supports the development of brand commitment (Fournier, 1998; Park et al., 2010; Thomson et al., 2005). In addition, brand attachment may extend to objects that are closely related to the brand, such as celebrities or possessions (Kleine et al., 1995; Thomson, 2006). More specifically, we advance the idea that consumers are likely to become attached to their brand’s communication channels as a way to stay close to their preferred brands because the need for relatedness is a prominent dimension of the consumer attachment process (Thomson, 2006). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that direct mail attachment as a form of extended brand attachment will contribute to brand commitment. Akin to interpersonal relationships, consumers can invest time, money and effort in relationships with their brands. Drawing on an investment model of human relationships, Sung and Choi (2010) found that consumers’ relationship investments constitute important antecedents of brand commitment. Given that the activity of an information search is an expense of time and cognitive effort, direct mail reading and rereading behaviors can be viewed as consumers’ relationship investments, leading to increased levels of brand commitment. Finally, recent research on relationship marketing has established that feelings of gratitude drive long-lasting performance benefits based on gratitude-related reciprocal behaviors (Palmatier et al., 2009; Simon, 2013). Accordingly, brand gratitude arising from receiving a brand’s direct mailing is expected to generate brand commitment. To conclude, we postulate the following hypotheses: H5. Direct mail (a) attachment, (b) reading amount, (c) rereading and (d) brand gratitude positively influence brand commitment.


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Figure 1. Conceptual model showing hypothesized relationships

The conceptual model showing the hypothesized relationships is depicted in Figure 1. Research methods and results Overview The research methods used followed a two-stage sequential design for instrument development and model testing, and involved four studies (Figure 2). Owing to this sequential development of the research, we report the results for each study after discussing the methods used. In the first stage, one qualitative and two sequential quantitative studies were conducted to assess the measurement properties of a set of first-order value types arising from the consumption of direct mail. In the second stage, we collected new data and used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to validate familiar value and planned value scales that were formatively designed from the set of value types previously assessed and to estimate the proposed structural model. As a key objective in this paper is to investigate consumer value arising from direct mail received at their homes, it is important that we sample people who actually receive this material. Respondents recruited for each of the four studies had free access to a letterbox without a No Junk Mail sticker. Having this sticker would mean they are not receiving unaddressed direct mail, thus precluding them from the study objectives. A convenience sampling approach was applied in that all participants were recruited on a referral basis by undergraduate students. They were, however, given strict guidelines to ensure that diverse samples of respondents were recruited with respect to age, occupation and gender for each of the studies.

RESEARCH DESIGN First-order value scales development 2-Calibraon study n = 297 n1 = 33 and n2 = 28


1-Qualitave inquiry

- Themac analysis - Value domains definions

- Items generaon - Content and face validity assessment

- Exploratory factor analysis - Scales purificaon

Research model tesng

3-Validaon study n = 222

4-Predicve study

-Confirmatory Factor Analysis -Convergent and discriminant validity

- Paral least squares structural modeling - Assessment of two formave value scales


n = 871

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- Causal model validaon

As with most research, there are inherent biases in the decisions about whom to sample depending on the focus of the research. Thus, criticism could be leveled that we have chosen biased samples in that they do not use the No Junk Mail sticker and, therefore, would not be likely to express their irritation to receiving direct mail. But not using a sticker does not necessarily preclude participants from feeling a degree of irritation from direct mail as discussed earlier, so we did not intentionally screen out any irritation factors. We argue, therefore, that the strength of our convenience sampling strategy resulted in participants being drawn from a broad community of individuals who met one stated criteria: they do not use No Junk Mail stickers. Thus, each sample can be regarded as being information rich for the objectives of the studies undertaken as firms’ direct mailings are delivered to their mailboxes. First-order value scales development This section describes the elaboration of direct mail consumer value (DMCV) scales in line with procedures advocated in previous literature (Netemeyer et al., 2003). The following three studies were conducted involving different samples: (1) a qualitative study to gain insights into consumers’ perceived value within our theoretical value domains framework and to generate potential items; (2) an exploratory factor analysis to calibrate the measurements of the DMCV constructs; and (3) a covariance-based confirmatory factor analysis to validate the reflective scales. Qualitative research. In-depth interviews were conducted by a team of graduate students trained in qualitative interviews. They were provided with a relevant discussion guide and specific instructions on how to conduct the interviews, including using probing questions to elaborate on participants’ reasons, feelings and perceived benefits. Participants were asked to think about their use of direct mail sent to their homes, why

Figure 2. Research design

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and when they use them, how they felt when using them and the benefits they receive from their experience with them. Participants in the first group (n ⫽ 33) were asked to think about their use of direct mail in general, whereas participants in the second group (n ⫽ 28) were asked to think specifically about the direct mailing they prefer to use. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis purposes. The first sample included 12 men and 21 women ranging from 23 to 72 years of age, and the second sample included 11 men and 17 women ranging from 24 to 65 years of age, suggesting two diverse samples were recruited for the study. The data were examined using theoretical thematic analysis from a deductive rather than an inductive approach, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 84). This approach refers to instances “where the researcher’s theoretical or analytic interest in the area is more prevalent” and “requires engagement with the literature prior to analysis” (p. 86). This is appropriate as we had already identified a values framework from Grönroos and Voima (2013) and Thévenot (2006). Therefore, we investigated the data in relation to the theoretical value dimensions framework shown in Table II to uncover consumers’ experienced benefits and gratifications from using direct mail, with the aim of identifying patterns and salient value themes reflective of the identified dimensions. When the thematic analysis was complete, two marketing faculty members evaluated the value themes deducted from the data in relation to the value domains framework and assessed the corresponding conceptual definitions for content validity. Results. A total of 15 distinct themes of value related to direct mail were evident in the interview data, as reflected by the data quotes shown in Appendix I. Seven value types can be classified under the familiarity engagement regime: (1) intimate accommodation; (2) brand individual recognition; (3) escapism; (4) pastime; (5) familiar social sharing; (6) brand intimacy; and (7) brand companionship. Eight additional themes can be classified under the planned action regime: (1) novelty surveillance; (2) offers comparison; (3) shopping planning; (4) monetary savings; (5) product-oriented daydreaming; (6) directed social sharing; (7) brand community belonging; and (8) functional diversion. Additionally, taking into account the social agency of value co-construction (self – other – brand), we were able to classify each of the value types into the value domains


framework, with the exception of functional diversion. As a planned value whose elaboration mostly involves self-agency, functional diversion does not meet the conceptual content of the value domain that formally refers to the assessment of brand product offering. We also found no evidence of the planned action engagement ⫻ brand domain, which is assumed to relate to brand– consumer cooperation and recovery agency. This result is not surprising considering that direct mail as a media channel does not allow for the spontaneous expression of consumers’ views. Despite these two limitations, the qualitative findings give credence to our value domains framework in supporting its two dimensions. While acknowledging that these themes are not emergent per se, they can be considered reflective of the relevant domains theorized a priori that further explicate the diversity within those domains. Additionally, it was evident that the value types could be classified as either intrinsic or extrinsic. Table III shows the themes classified into a taxonomy of consumer value when engaging with direct mail. This taxonomy will be referred to as the DMCV taxonomy. Study 2: exploratory factor analysis. Based on the findings of the qualitative study, as well as scales used in prior studies that report on their reliability and validity, a pool of items was generated to tap into each of the 15 value types identified in the taxonomy. Three marketing faculty members evaluated these items for content and face validity and suggested the removal of some items judged to be unclear, not representative of the category or redundant. This procedure reduced the pool to 71 items covering the 15 value constructs shown in the taxonomy. These items were developed into a paper-based survey instrument. All constructs were measured with seven-point Likert scales with end points of 1 ⫽ strongly disagree and 7 ⫽ strongly agree. The sample for this study consisted of 297 respondents (Mage ⫽ 38, SD ⫽ 16; 68 per cent women). To address the relatively high correlations Engagement regime Familiarity

Self

1539

Social agency of the co-construction of value Others Brand Familiar social ties maintenance

Extrinsic Intrinsic

Communication channel individual accommodation Intimate accommodation Pastime–escapism

Planned action

Product offering individual assessment

Product buyingdirected socializing

Extrinsic

Novelty surveillance–offers comparison–shopping planning–monetary savings (functional diversion)a Product-oriented daydreaming

Brand community belonging

Intrinsic


Familiar social sharing

Brand domestication Brand individual recognition Brand intimacy–brand companionship Brand–consumer cooperation and recovery agency Unobserved

Directed social sharing

Note: a Functional diversion is a planned value involving the self-agency, but it does not belong to the prescribed value domain

Table III. DMCV taxonomy

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among the dimensions (ranging from 0.02 to 0.54), we used principal axis factoring with oblique rotation. The findings reveal 15 factors with eigenvalues greater than or close to one. This exploratory analysis reduced the pool to 47 items. The retained items were shown to the three marketing faculty members used previously to ensure that the purification process did not lead to any loss in the face and content validity of the value scales. The items provide strong contributions to the factor they represent (loadings ranging from 0.58 to 0.97). Appendix II identifies the constructs, their measurement scale items and origins and the factor loadings. Study 3: confirmatory factor analysis. A new sample (n ⫽ 222, Mage ⫽ 36, SD ⫽ 13; 57 per cent women) was recruited for the confirmatory factor analysis study. The 47-item, 15-dimension exploratory factor model was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood estimation with Amos (19.0). Findings indicated an acceptable overall fit. An inspection of the modification indices revealed one item as a candidate for removal. A final confirmatory model was then estimated using the remaining 46 items, which presented a good fit: ␹2/ddl ⫽ 1.652, CFI ⫽ 0.95, IFI ⫽ 0.95, TLI ⫽ 0.94 and RMSEA ⫽ 0.054. The items are highly correlated with the latent constructs, with correlations ranging from 0.69 to 0.99 (see Appendix II). The constructs also display good internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.81 to 0.98. In terms of convergent validity, all factor loadings are significant (p ⬍ 0.001), and the average variance extracted (AVE) exceeds 0.5 for each latent construct. Moreover, the AVE is systematically higher than the squared correlations among the 15 dimensions, confirming discriminant validity. The consumer value types correlate at different levels with one another (correlations between latent variables range between ⫺0.04 and 0.76), and no statistical evidence was found in support of second-order reflective factors. Overall, the results strongly support the notion that the measures associated with the DMCV taxonomy are reliable and exhibit strong levels of convergent and discriminant validity. Taken together, these measures are referred to as the DMCV scale. Model testing Analytical approach. The DMCV scale is then incorporated into the structural model to be tested, as shown in Figure 1, and the measurement items for all constructs are shown in Appendix II. Although the previous studies examined consumer value-arising communications received through direct mail, this model examines how these values measured using the formative planned and familiar value scales can predict brand commitment. The properties of the structural model were assessed following a two-step measurement and structural approach. We used PLS-SEM via SmartPLS 2.0 (Ringle et al., 2005) to estimate the measurement and structural models. When using formative scales, PLS-SEM is advantageous compared to the covariance-based structural equation, which has some limitations when modeling in formative mode (Chin, 1998; Henseler et al., 2009). Bootstrap percentile confidence intervals were constructed to assess whether the relationships in our model are statistically significant. Following Preacher and Hayes (2008), the number of bootstrap samples was set equal to 5,000, with each bootstrap sample containing the same number of observations as the original sample. Furthermore, 14 of the 15 first-order value scales were integrated in the measurement and structural models. This decision arose because functional diversion was not considered to be formative of the planned value scale as the construct does not


reflect the consumer’s engagement in a buying plan. For this reason, there is no theoretical rationale supporting its inclusion in the nomological model. Sample. Analyses were conducted on data collected from a new sample of 871 respondents. Twenty-nine per cent of the sample were between 20 and 29 years of age, 21 per cent were between 30 and 39 years and 50 per cent were older than 40 years; 62 per cent were women. Respondents were asked to choose direct mailings that they have received from a single brand or retailer and to think about those ones when responding to the survey. Results show they mainly selected brands or retailers from the following sectors: food (40.3 per cent), clothing (14.3 per cent), sport and leisure (12.4 per cent), furniture and household appliances (11.8 per cent), beauty (9.6 per cent), services (6.8 per cent) and cultural goods (4.3 per cent). Fifty-two per cent of the direct mailings were addressed and 48 per cent were unaddressed. Test of the measurement model. In evaluating the psychometric properties of the investigated scales, it is important to distinguish between formative and reflective scales because their unique characteristics affect the type of properties that are required and the methods by which these properties are to be assessed (Hair et al., 2012). Assessment of reflective scales. As shown in Appendix II, all reflective indicators are significantly associated with their respective constructs (p ⬍ 0.001), and all loadings are well above the critical threshold of 0.7, indicating high indicator reliability (Götz et al., 2010). We assessed the measurement properties of the reflective constructs in the model using Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability and AVE. As illustrated in Table IV, all reflective latent constructs far exceed the recommended thresholds, thus supporting convergent validity. As can be inferred from the inter-construct correlation matrix shown in Appendix III, all constructs used in this study fulfill the requirement, which calls for a construct’s AVE to be larger than the square of its largest correlation with any Construct

AVE

Composite reliability

Cronbach’s alpha

1. Intimate accommodation 2. Brand individual recognition 3. Escapism 4. Pastime 5. Familiar social sharing 6. Brand intimacy 7. Brand companionship 8. Novelty surveillance 9. Offers comparison 10. Shopping planning 11. Monetary savings 12. Product-oriented daydreaming 13. Directed social sharing 14. Brand community belonging 15. Reading amount 16. Rereading 17. Brand gratitude 18. Direct mail attachment 19. Brand commitment

0.75 0.87 0.93 0.90 0.86 0.90 0.96 0.86 0.93 0.91 0.89 0.88 0.84 0.86 0.87 0.93 0.86 0.89 0.79

0.90 0.95 0.97 0.96 0.95 0.97 0.99 0.95 0.97 0.97 0.96 0.96 0.95 0.95 0.95 0.97 0.96 0.96 0.94

0.83 0.92 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.95 0.98 0.92 0.96 0.95 0.94 0.93 0.94 0.92 0.93 0.96 0.94 0.94 0.91


Table IV. Internal consistency and convergent validity of reflective constructs (sample ⫽ 871)

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construct, thus confirming discriminant validity. Detailed descriptive statistics for the reflective scales are provided in Appendix III. Common method bias. The use of perceptual measures provides the potential for common method variance. Following Podsakoff et al. (2003), we created a psychological separation in our survey instrument by using a cover story to make it appear that the measurement of the predictor variables was not connected with the measurement of the criterion variables. In addition, Harman’s (1967) one-factor test was performed by using all the reflective indicators in an exploratory factor analysis. A substantial amount of common method variance is present when a single factor emerges from the factor analysis or when one factor accounts for the majority of the covariance among measures. In our data, the exploratory factor analysis resulted in a factorial structure of 14 components with eigenvalues greater than 1.00. No single factor accounted for more than 30 per cent of the total variance explained, thus implying that common method bias was not a threat in this study. Assessment of formative scales. As classified under the two regimes of familiarity and planned action, the spectrum of the 14 DMCV types is related to a higher-order principle of engagement regime-embedded value. Therefore, we conceptualized the familiar value and planned value constructs as Type II multi-dimensional second-order indexes (reflective–formative type) (Jarvis et al., 2003). Both constructs were specified in PLS-SEM through the repeated use of the manifest variables (i.e. indicators) of the underlying first-order reflective constructs (Wetzels et al., 2009). Because formative indicators are items that cause variance in the construct under scrutiny, statistics for assessing internal consistency are therefore inappropriate (Hair et al., 2012). Instead, multicollinearity is the major concern in assessing the quality of formative constructs because multiple indicators jointly predict a latent construct analogously to variables in multiple regression (Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001). Analysis revealed that multicollinearity did not play a role in the formative measurement models because all variance inflation factor (VIF) values were below the recommended cut-off level of 5 suggested by Hair et al. (2012). More precisely, the maximum VIF values were 2.33 and 2.50 for, respectively, the familiar value and planned value (see Table V). To evaluate the performance of formative measures, the indicator weights and their statistical significance are the statistics of interest (Hair et al., 2012). From the figures presented in Table V, we can conclude that our formative measurement models perform well, each of the first-order value types being a highly significant contributor (p ⬍ 0.001) to its associated second-order aggregate (i.e. familiar value or planned value). Overall, our findings provide evidence of the validity of both familiar value and planned value constructs. Test of the structural model. Results from the PLS analysis of the structural model, including path coefficients and their statistical significance, are reported in Table VI. To assess the quality of our structural model, we evaluated VIF at the structural level (Götz et al., 2010) and the coefficient of determination (R2) (Chin, 1998). Because the VIF values are well below 5, they do not raise concern about multicollinearity. The values for R2 exceed the cut-off level of 0.19 (Chin, 1998) and can be characterized as substantial in the consumer behavior discipline (Hair et al., 2012). Thus, both familiar value and planned value explain more than 40 per cent of the explained variance for brand gratitude (R2 ⫽ 0.50), direct mail attachment (R2 ⫽ 0.46) and rereading (R2 ⫽ 0.41), and explain

Construct

First-order scale

Weight

t-value

VIF

1. Intimate accommodation 2. Brand individual recognition 3. Escapism 4. Pastime 5. Familiar social sharing 6. Brand intimacy 7. Brand companionship

0.17 0.20 0.19 0.17 0.19 0.21 0.20

28.02 29.63 35.56 24.13 35.68 37.47 32.67

1.85 1.60 2.19 1.51 2.09 2.33 2.21

8. Novelty surveillance 9. Offers comparison 10. Shopping planning 11. Monetary savings 12. Product-oriented daydreaming 13. Directed social sharing 14. Brand community belonging

0.19 0.17 0.20 0.19 0.16 0.27 0.19

27.96 21.94 30.86 25.63 21.07 34.02 25.16

1.80 1.59 2.50 1.95 1.52 1.81 1.65

Effect size f 2

t-value

Hypothesis status

0.34 0.38 ⫺0.02 0.56

0.01 0.19

8.53 9.41 0.50 12.09

0.23 0.44

0.22 0.33

4.99 9.79

0.59 0.14

0.29 0.02

15.87 3.41


Familiar value


Planned value

Hypothesis

Relationship

H1a H1b H2a H2b H2c H3a H3b H3c H4a H4b H4c H5a H5b H5c H5d

Familiar value ⱖ direct mail attachment Planned value ⱖ direct mail attachment Familiar value ⱖ reading amount Planned value ⱖ reading amount H2a ⬍ H2b Familiar value ⱖ rereading Planned value ⱖ rereading H3a ⬍ H3b Familiar value ⱖ brand gratitude Planned value ⱖ brand gratitude H4a ⬎ H4b Direct mail attachment ⱖ brand commitment Reading amount ⱖ brand commitment Rereading ⱖ brand commitment Brand gratitude ⱖ brand commitment

␤

0.16 0.18 0.13 0.31

4.08 5.16 3.21 9.35

Accepted Accepted Rejected Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted Accepted

30 per cent of reading amount. Overall, our model explains a significant amount of variance in brand commitment (R2 ⫽ 0.38). With the exception of H2a, all hypotheses are supported (see Table VI). Both familiar value and planned value exert positive and significant effects (p ⬍ 0.001) on direct mail attachment, rereading and brand gratitude. Planned value strongly affects reading amount, whereas familiar value has no significant effect. Each of the four explained variables, in turn, exerts a positive and significant effect (p ⬍ 0.001) on brand commitment, with brand gratitude contributing to a higher extent than direct mail attachment or information search variables such as reading amount and rereading. Regarding the relative impact of familiar value and planned value, the beta coefficients

Table V. Assessment of formative constructs (sample ⫽ 871)

Table VI. Path coefficients and respective t-values of hypotheses

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may be examined to measure the relative influence of each variable on the outcome of interest, given that collinearity concerns are minimal (Hair et al., 2006). As indicated above, compared to those of planned value, the beta coefficients of familiar value are lower for the reading amount and rereading outcomes and higher for the gratitude outcome. Similarly, the effect sizes regarding the relationships under scrutiny follow an analogous pattern (see Table VI), thus supporting H2c, H3c and H4c. Discussion Findings from the four-study empirical investigation of consumer value and direct mail raise several points of interest. First, a DMCV taxonomy was developed and determined as being structured along the two theoretically derived dimensions, that is, the regimes of engagement and social agency of value co-construction. This taxonomy encompasses 15 value types that are evenly distributed between familiarity and planned action regimes of engagement. Second, this value taxonomy was converted into a scale validated through confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, our proposed model, which incorporates the value types using the familiar and planned value scales, appears to be robust in predicting consumers’ brand commitment. With the exception of one, all of the hypothesized relationships are corroborated by our empirical evidence. Thus, our findings lend support to the nomological validity of familiar value and planned value scales as postulated in our model. Although both variables can be regarded as being equally predictive of consumers’ attachment to direct mail as evidenced by their almost equivalent path coefficients, familiar value better explains the feelings of gratitude that consumers may experience when receiving direct mailings from a brand or retailer. In contrast, planned value is a better predictor of direct mail reading intensity (i.e. reading amount and rereading) than familiar value. Theoretical implications Our research advances academic understanding of how consumer value from communications through direct mail may affect consumer responses by introducing the distinction between familiar and planned value. Additionally, it provides new insights into research on consumer value and its influence on brand relational communication, as a source of brand commitment. Implications for consumer value. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first in the consumer behavior literature to investigate consumer benefits from the social perspective of engagement regimes. Although consumer value research tends to be more aligned with the planned action regime because it is directly related to shopping motivations (Mathwick et al., 2001; Arnold and Reynolds, 2003), the theoretical framework formally opens the analysis of value along the familiarity regime where consumers accommodate over time their use of objects to feel at ease and secure within their intimate (domestic) environment. This broadened scope should help consumer researchers to sharpen their awareness of value themes located within the familiarity regime that remains underexplored to date. For example, value types such as intimate accommodation and brand intimacy have actually emerged from our investigation of direct mail consumption under the familiarity regime. In addition, the specification of value types already identified by consumer research may increase in accuracy by distinguishing between familiarity and planned action regimes. In our study, social sharing value, which Arnold and Reynolds (2003) identified as an important shopping


motivation, exemplifies this case because the construct has been distinctly conceptualized under each of the engagement regimes. As another illustration, daydreaming can be viewed as the counterpart of escapism as a consumer value in relation to brand products. On these grounds, our value framework is likely to complement methodological approaches such as the means-end chain analysis (Reynolds and Gutman, 1988) by introducing the systematic exploration of consumer benefits under each of the engagement regimes involved in the consumption of a specified object. In elucidating the role of the familiarity regime, our broadened value approach has implications for both transformative services research and transformative consumer research. For example, this regime allows for marketing concerns more specifically related to consumers’ well-being outcomes to be addressed, as advocated by transformative service research (Crockett et al., 2013). In particular, this may be achieved through a stronger understanding of the types of value that a brand communication channel may have for consumers. For example, in addition to the functional and intrinsic value benefits derived from a regime of planned action-related search, a brand communication channel, such as direct mailing, may provide consumers with familiar value, ensuring an inner sense of comfort and security over time. Because of its high degree of idiosyncrasy, familiar value is not easily substitutable. As a consequence, consumers may severely resent the loss of this familiar value when companies decide to eliminate or reduce the use of one brand communication channel (Reinders et al., 2008). In addition, due to its private nature, familiar value is less easily recognized than planned value, and the significance of its loss for consumers may be imperceptible to companies or an outside observer (Thévenot, 2007). Therefore, transformative consumer researchers should closely consider familiar value to be sure not to underestimate the consequences of changes occurring in product offerings and retail distribution for more vulnerable consumer groups. Overall, marketing research that neglects familiar value and focuses exclusively on planned value may fail to capture the full effects of consumers’ consumption of object including the consequences of their loss. Finally, our value framework highlights the brand or retailer’s role as a parasocial partner in the interaction permitted by a brand communicational channel. Significant values such as brand individual recognition, brand intimacy or brand companionship have been uncovered in our research that constitute important dimensions of the familiar value scale. Paradoxically, these relational values have been largely ignored in the advertising literature to date, although they may contribute to settle the foundations of brand commitment, as evidenced in this research. Therefore, our findings call for a deeper understanding of the various manifestations of social brand agency in the context of multichannel relational communication. Implications for brand relational communication. This study also demonstrates that direct mail consumption may lead consumers to significantly reinforce brand commitment through the complementary action of mediational variables whose natures are behavioral (reading amount and rereading), affective (attachment) and relational (brand gratitude). Thus, the findings from this research provide clear evidence of the ability of brand relational communication to create relationship outcomes from the creation of consumer values. Specifically, they substantiate the findings of other studies that have reported a positive impact of printed direct mail communication on loyalty


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(Gázquez-Abad et al., 2011; Godfrey et al., 2011; Danaher and Rossiter, 2011). More generally, such research investigating relational communication value contributes to the literature streams regarding object attachment and brand gratitude. As such, our research contributes to these streams in the following ways. First, this research provides new insights into consumer attachment by extending its scope to a brand communication channel as a particular target. Specifically, our findings show that consumers are likely to feel a strong desire to maintain their receipt of direct mailings for a given brand, even feeling a degree of distress when they anticipate the possibility of not receiving them. We found that both high familiar value and high planned value lead to direct mail attachment. This finding indicates that a given brand communication channel may be favored because it is a valued source of expertise and advice and also a singular way to be emotionally bound to the brand and to the communication channel itself through accommodation value. In addition, our model relates commitment toward a brand to the attachment to a communication channel as a particular object that is provided by this brand. In contrast, consumer attachment research tends to consider the same target across variables in its causal models, thus explaining brand commitment by brand attachment (Park et al., 2010; Thomson et al., 2005). In this regard, our model can be viewed as an incremental step toward an attachment approach to branded objects, most notably to brand communication facilities, that would be formally relational, that is, involving brand relationship quality as a final variable. Second, this research substantiates the role of brand gratitude in understanding the effects of relational communication viewed as a brand relationship investment, thus providing growing evidence in support of the gratitude-based theoretical framework of Palmatier et al. (2009). Specifically, our study shows that the gratitude that consumers express when receiving direct mailings from their selected brand or retailer is a determinant factor of brand commitment. Thus, our research takes a firm stance on the need to consider customer gratitude arising from the provision of a particular communication channel in research on relational communication. Prior research on customer gratitude suggests that relationship investments that are built into the overall product or service offering and pertain to role-based obligations may generate little gratitude or need to reciprocate from consumers (Palmatier et al., 2009). This is the case in our research because brand gratitude is clearly less well-explained by planned value than by familiar value. Overall, our findings provide fresh insights into how the gratitudinal potential of brand relational communication can be improved by leveraging non-contractual, more informal and parasocial aspects of this communication. Managerial implications The multiplication of digital media notwithstanding, the current research provides evidence to managers that direct mail can be a worthwhile relationship investment that may effectively contribute to brand commitment. Moreover, given that consumers’ familiar value is likely to increase over time, our research indicates that companies may benefit from the cumulative effects of their past direct mail communication for each additional direct mailing they send, provided they are able to ensure regularity in their communication. However, as prior research suggests, managers need to be careful to


determine how much is too much, which might result in irritation or annoyance (Elliott and Speck, 1998; van Diepen et al., 2009). Additionally, we provide recommendations organized around two core themes for managers to support effective use of direct mail through the reinforcement of brand commitment. First, they should endeavor to increase customer reading intensity. From the DMCV taxonomy and the proposed model, our research allows for the identification of the planned value types that, collectively, actively contribute to make the reading of direct mailings more intense when customers receive them. Specifically, our study shows that expectations of novelty and good bargains enhance customers’ reading intensity, which has also been suggested in the advertising literature (Malthouse and Calder, 2010; Wilcox and Woodside, 2012; Gázquez-Abad et al., 2014). Additionally, our research shows two social value types, i.e. directed social sharing and brand community belonging, that can be easily leveraged to reinforce reading intensity. Thus, marketers should be aware that encouraging consumers to discuss the content of direct mail with relatives or other customers may lead them to read direct mail advertising more extensively. For instance, marketers could encourage customers to express their views or suggestions on the brand’s social media platforms after having read the direct mails. This could be done by inserting inside textual drivers including quick response codes (Okazaki et al., 2012), thus further increasing customers’ participation. In the same vein, marketers could reinforce the brand community belonging value by including testimonials in their direct mailings about how customers use the brand’s products and which of the brand’s attributes they appreciate most. Second, marketers should consider strategies to increase customer gratitude toward the brand or the firm. The findings show that the gratitude consumers experience when receiving a direct mailing is a strong factor of brand commitment. Moreover, findings show that familiar value is more closely related to brand gratitude than planned value, suggesting a more relational focus than one of driving purchase intentions. Therefore, the aspects of familiar value identified in our research should be closely considered by marketers. For instance, aesthetic imagery and exotic scenery can favor customers’ escapism (Phillips and McQuarrie, 2010) and may further trigger gratitude. Accordingly, there is a need to reinforce the individual recognition of customers by providing them with items of interest. This could include subtly branded items inside the direct mailings that can be easily accommodated by customers into their private environment without being formally related to the brand offer, such as calendars, cooking recipes or technical advice. In addition, customers’ perceptions of a certain degree of intimacy with their brand should be maintained through the regular and sufficient frequency of direct mail communication, as advocated by the literature on attachment (Hazan and Shaver, 1994). Finally, our value scales, when considered together, provide a comprehensive tool for managers to evaluate their direct mailings’ efficiency and to better control how the direct mail channel may contribute to brand commitment. In particular, practitioners can use the scales to assess whether their direct mail communication is balanced along the two dimensions of planned and familiar values. If not, then firms may consider revising their direct mail communication strategy by strengthening those communication aspects that are weak and in need of attention.


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Limitations and future research As with many exploratory studies, this research has a number of limitations that can be improved upon in future research. First, as addressed earlier, the studies in the research use convenience samples that, although more than adequate in size for each study to provide validity for the findings, do limit the generalizability of the findings beyond this study. Second, our research does not consider consumers that have adopted a No Junk Mail sticker on their letterbox, previously estimated to be around 9 per cent of the population in France (TNS SOFRES, 2011). Although we argued that this was necessary for the objectives of the research, we recognize that it led to possible bias in the samples and that future research should endeavor to explore the opinions of those who do not wish to receive direct mail. Third, this research focuses on a specific context, that is, direct mail, to establish the validity of the theoretical integration of engagement theory and consumer value, as well as nomological properties of the DMCV scale. While we were careful to test the DMCV scale using different samples for each study, and by permitting the respondents to think of direct mailings from brands or retailers in different industry sectors, it is necessary to evaluate the generalizability of our value domains framework across other communication channels. In particular, because direct mail is viewed by consumers as the least intrusive and the easiest to dispose of (Morimoto and Chang, 2006; Godfrey et al., 2011; Danaher and Rossiter, 2011), it is possible that the role of familiar value may be overinflated in the case of direct mail compared to other channels. In the same vein, further research should consider the extent to which a brand communication channel can be largely opened up to interactions with other people, which may favor the regime of justification that constitutes the third regime in the theory of engagement regimes. One example could be application in virtual brand communities where consumers can engage in impression management practices, evangelizing and justifying their devotion to a brand (Muñiz and Schau, 2005). Finally, when examining the relationships between constructs and the outcome variable brand commitment, while we did not test for this, it is possible that some of the factors influencing brand commitment could actually be outcomes of that commitment. For example, brand commitment as a form of enduring involvement toward the brand could influence reading amount. That is, the more committed an individual is to the brand, the more likely he/she is to read the direct mails more intensely. Future research could examine such relationships to better determine the roles of the variables used, possibly through an experimental design or a longitudinal data analysis to assess the relative importance of the opposite paths relating reading behaviors to brand commitment over periods of time. Conclusion This paper advances a theory of consumer value arising from a brand communication channel that sheds light on how familiar value and planned value, as governed by two distinct regimes of engagement, contrastingly contribute to consumer responses. First, we proposed a theoretical framework of value domains, drawing upon the engagement regime and the social agency of value co-construction as two contingent sources of value differentiation. This value framework was tested in the context of direct mail. By highlighting the brand’s relational role and contextualizing the value creation, this framework offers a fresh view of consumer value for a brand communication channel.


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Corresponding author Simon Françoise can be contacted at: [email protected]

Appendix I. Value themes from consuming direct mail Value dimension, conceptual definition and illustrative quotes from the qualitative study (1) Intimate accommodation: Using direct mailings for the feeling of ease and convenience they provide by customizing them in a fragmentary and idiosyncratic manner. • “You can read direct mails several times a day and move them around as you like. You can also fold them and tidy them away easily”. • “I always put direct mails I am interested in visibly on the kitchen table; that way, I have them close at hand just in case”. • “Personally, with direct mails, I mark them, cut them out or fold over the corners. I don’t think I would be able to do that so easily if they were text messages”. (2) Brand individual recognition: Using direct mailings for the sense of intimate security and psychological comfort, they provide in being recognized as a customer and treated with consideration by a brand. • “If I didn’t receive any more direct mailings, frankly I would feel a bit neglected by the brands! ” • “It is the company approaching me in my home, and I do not have to make the effort of going out and getting the information myself. It is a form of consideration for the customer”. • “The company must make its customers feel that they are important and that it does not give preference to a few ‘big’ customers over other customers who might be less wealthy. That is how I see the ads that arrive in my letterbox”. (3) Escapism: Using direct mailings for the feeling of ease and psychological comfort, they provide in getting away from the actual world. • “Direct mails allow me to relax when I get back from work. Looking at them is a way of making a break between my professional life and my family life …. Yes, they help me get away from the real world, and that does me good”. • “Reading the direct mails is my nice little break in the day!” • “I like reading the direct mails: it frees my mind from everyday hassles and allows me to think about other things”. (4) Pastime: Using direct mailings for the feeling of ease and psychological comfort, they provide in passing the time away. • “Yes, it passes the time when I am eating alone and feeling bored”. • “I read them to kill time, like when there is a moment when I have nothing really interesting to do and I do not feel like doing the housework”. • “It is a way of passing the time on Sundays when there is nothing special to do, but it is not really recreational”.


(5) Familiar social sharing: Using direct mailings for the feeling of ease and psychological comfort, they provide in experiencing intimate social exchanges with close relatives. • “During my lunch break, I usually look at supermarket direct mails with my mother. We like to do that; it relaxes us and gives us ideas for meal menus”. • “Paper ads are really convivial for discussing with my relatives. Personally, I read direct mails on Saturday mornings with my partner: we chat a bit about everything: prices, products and what we are going to do at the weekend”. • “Reading direct mails often ends up becoming a moment of sharing for the family. Everyone expresses their preferences, and we have a good time together”. (6) Brand intimacy: Using direct mailings for the feeling of ease and psychological comfort, they provide in being close and connected to the brand. • “Without direct mails, I would certainly feel less close to this brand”. • “Even though I know that it is the same for all loyal customers, I find that direct mails add a slightly more emotional side to my relation with the company”. • “With direct mails, there is a certain form of closeness that is established with the company. They feed the interest that we have for the brand and its products”. • “Over time, by receiving direct mails, there is something social that is created between the brands and us”. (7) Brand companionship: Using direct mailings for the sense of intimate security and psychological comfort, they provide in experiencing some togetherness with a brand and thus escaping loneliness. • “Reading catalogues and direct mails has become a daily activity for me, a habit. Not receiving any more would not seem normal, and I would feel a gap, like a virtual presence that was missing”. • “Direct mails provide me company daily”. • “I am retired and often feel lonely, so direct mails keep me company”. (8) Novelty surveillance: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan via the scrutiny of products’ novelty and keeping up with trends and new fashions. • “I like new things, and direct mails are a way of seeing products that have just come out with their prices, as well as new trends”. • “I particularly like to receive samples and to be informed of new products, to be able to try out new things”. • “I want to continue receiving direct mails because otherwise I feel cut off, and I’m not aware of anything anymore about fashion or new household electric appliances”. (9) Offers comparison: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan via the comparison of companies’ offers and prices. • “What I would really miss would be not knowing about ongoing promotions, no longer being able to compare prices without having to go on internet every time, which would be quite a pain”. • “Generally, I keep all the week’s direct mails, compare them with each other and then I go off to do my shopping”. • “It is easier and quicker to compare prices with direct mails rather than on the screen”. (10) Shopping planning: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan by selecting products and shops.


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(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

• “Direct mails mean my spending is more careful and smarter because it has been well prepared”. • “They give me a lot of useful information to prepare my weekend shopping properly; they avoid us having to go out shopping without any idea of prices and promotions”. • “I admit that I wait to get my ads to select my weekend food shopping”. Monetary savings: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan by spending less and saving money. • “I only look at the direct mails that I know usually offer good promotions. I’m not interested in the others. Also, with direct mails you don’t need to print out the coupons”. • “Receiving reduction coupons, seeing exceptional offers, finding bargains: that’s what I really get out of direct mails. I couldn’t manage without them, and if I didn’t have them, the household budget would feel the difference”. • “It’s true that I do not throw the direct mails away without having looked at them because I’m too frightened that I might miss a great opportunity, like the promotion of the century”. Product-oriented daydreaming: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan by mentally visualizing products and daydreaming about their potential uses. • “I must admit that I always look at the competition offers….. I see myself winning the prize in the competition and imagine what I could do with it”. • “With decoration catalogues, I imagine myself with the products presented in the catalogue. I try to imagine whether the furniture would go with the interior and style of my house… I turn it all over in my mind”. • “When I read supermarket leaflets, I particularly appreciate ‘special weeks’ (on Asia, Morocco etc.), and I imagine myself making the food and trying new recipes”. Directed social sharing: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan by purposefully assessing products through exchanges with relatives or friends. • “These times consulting each other are an important moment in preparing my purchases, because I like to be advised by my close ones”. • “I share what I have read with my wife or children, as I like to get several opinions before making a decision”. • “Generally, I tell my spouse about the ‘bargains’, and we look together to see whether it is really interesting”. Brand community belonging: Using direct mailings to create a buying plan by partaking in a brand’s customer community and engaging in social exchanges about the brand and its offers. • “I love cooking, and I really feel that I belong to a community of customers for brand X (kitchen accessory manufacturer), which regularly sends me little catalogues, gives me recipes and tips from other cooking enthusiasts like myself”. • “I think it is more particularly in fashion that I feel I belong to a community of consumers... In fact, I feel that I belong to two communities: ‘mothers’ with direct mails from food supermarkets and ‘active women who pay attention to the way they look’ with catalogues X and Y (clothing brands)”.


• “Having a loyalty card and receiving regular letters with special offers for you really makes you feel that you belong to a private club with people who have the same centres of interest as you and who have chosen the same brand as you”. (15) Functional diversion: Using direct mailings to implement a personal plan thanks to the physical material carrying the message. • “To peel vegetables, I always put store flyers down”. • “I use them for the children when they are doing painting”. • “Underneath the litter for my rabbit, I always use supermarket direct mails because they are quite thick”.


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Appendix II

Reflectively designed constructs and items


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1. Intimate accommodation (from the qualitative study) For the direct mails from this brand . . . I like to keep all or part of them in particular places in my home environment . . . I adapt them in my own way to keep track of the information that interests me . . . As soon as these ads enter my home, they become familiar objects that I feel at ease with

EFA (n ⫽ 297)

CFA (n ⫽ 222)

PLS-analysis (n ⫽ 871)

⫺0.85

0.81

0.87

⫺0.81

0.79

0.88

⫺0.61

0.69

0.86

2. Brand individual recognition (adapted from Mimouni-Chaabane and Volle, 2010) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I’m treated better than if I did not receive them 0.95 0.96 . . ., I’m treated with more consideration than if I did not receive them 0.93 0.97 . . ., I feel I am more distinguished than if I did not receive them 0.83 0.92 3. Escapism (adapted from Mathwick et al., 2001) Whenever I was reading these direct mails, I had the impression of being immersed in another world I sometimes get so involved as I consult these direct mails that I forget everything else Reading through these direct mails gets me away from it all 4. Pastime (adapted from Rubin, 1983) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., it passes the time away when I have nothing better to do . . ., it gives me something to do to occupy my time . . ., it passes the time away, particularly when I am bored

Table AII. Origins of scales, identification of items and factor loadings

0.96 0.96 0.87

0.88

0.89

0.96

0.93

0.97

0.97

0.93

0.92

0.96

0.95 0.91

0.96 0.96

0.96 0.95

0.95

0.93

0.93

5. Familiar social sharing (two items from Lin, 1993 and one from the qualitative study) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I have some familiar sharing time with people who share my life 0.64 0.89 . . ., I find something quite interesting to talk to my family about 0.83 0.91 . . ., I find something to use in starting a conversation with my relatives 0.75 0.90

0.93 0.93 0.92 (continued)

CFA (n ⫽ 222)


0.71

0.92

0.95

0.68

0.96

0.96

0.58

0.88

0.94

⫺0.94

0.94

0.98

⫺0.96 ⫺0.93

0.98 0.94

0.99 0.97

8. Novelty surveillance (adapted from Arnold and Reynolds, 2003) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I can keep up with the trends 0.91 . . ., I can keep up with the new fashions 0.91 . . ., I can see what new products are available 0.79

0.95 0.88 0.77

0.95 0.95 0.88

0.92

0.92

0.95

0.97

0.99

0.97

0.94

0.95

0.96

⫺0.88 ⫺0.87

0.94 0.91

0.96 0.96

⫺0.91

0.86

0.95



6. Brand intimacy (adapted from Heinrich et al., 2008) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I feel closer to this brand . . ., I experience a form of connection between this brand and me . . ., I feel there is more intimacy between this brand and me 7. Brand companionship (adapted from Rubin, 1983) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I won’t have to be alone . . ., I feel like there is someone else to talk or to be with . . ., it makes me feel less lonely

9. Offers comparison (from the qualitative study) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I compare its products and prices with those of its competitors . . ., I can choose the best offer for me by comparing with ads from its competitors . . ., I make comparisons with ads from competitors to find the best price 10. Shopping planning (from the qualitative study) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I can prepare my purchases more effectively . . ., I plan my shopping better . . ., I can select the products I want to buy more effectively

EFA (n ⫽ 297)

11. Monetary savings (adapted from Mimouni-Chaabane and Volle, 2010) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I shop at a lower financial cost 0.90 . . . . . ., I spend less 0.92 . . ., I save money 0.92

0.88 0.91 0.84

0.94 0.94 0.95 (continued)


Table AII.

EJM 49,9/10


1560


EFA (n ⫽ 297)

CFA (n ⫽ 222)


0.81

0.93

0.97

0.96

0.88

0.93

⫺0.81

0.85

0.90

⫺0.89

0.84

0.93

⫺0.83

0.90

0.93

⫺0.73

0.83

0.91

12. Product-oriented daydreaming (items from Walters et al., 2007) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I find myself daydreaming about the featured products 0.86 . . ., the mental images that come to mind form a series of events in my mind in which I am a part of 0.92 . . ., I could easily construct a story about myself and the featured products based on the mental images that come to mind 0.93 13. Directed social sharing (from the qualitative study) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I discuss their contents with my relatives or friends to prepare purchases . . ., I show them to my relatives or friends to share the “good deals” or promotions . . ., I discuss their contents with my relatives or friends to get additional advice on offers . . ., I often give to my relatives or friends information about products that comes from these ads

14. Brand community belonging (one item from Mimouni-Chaabane, 2010 and two items from Keller, 2003) Thanks to the direct mails from this brand . . ., I feel like I belong to a community of people who share the same values as me 0.70 0.83 0.91 . . ., I feel like I almost belong to a club with other users of this brand 0.71 0.88 0.94 . . ., I feel a sort of connection with others who use this brand 0.62 0.93 0.93 15. Functional diversion (from the qualitative study) The paper from these direct mails comes in useful to me I find new uses for the paper from these direct mails I use the paper from these direct mails for personal or domestic uses 16. Reading amount (from the qualitative study) When I receive a direct mail from this company . . ., I always open it to see what it contains . . ., I flip through most of the pages . . ., I read several parts of its content attentively 17. Rereading (from the qualitative study) For the direct mails from this brand . . ., I keep them for rereading purposes . . ., I consult them repeatedly . . ., I reread them on several occasions Table AII.

0.70 0.92

0.85 0.99

0.93

0.96

0.92 0.94 0.94

0.94 0.98 0.97 (continued)



18. Brand gratitude (Goei and Boster, 2005) When I receive a direct mail from this brand . . ., I feel grateful to this brand . . ., I feel thankful to this brand . . ., I feel appreciative toward this brand . . ., I feel a sense of gratitude to this brand

EFA (n ⫽ 297)

CFA (n ⫽ 222)


0.88 0.95 0.94 0.94


19. Direct mail attachment (two items from Park, 2010a, 2010b and one from the qualitative study) I would be distressed if the direct mails from this brand were discontinued 0.92 I feel like I am attached to receiving direct mails from this brand 0.95 It would be difficult to imagine life without the direct mails from this brand 0.95 20. Brand commitment (four items from Adjei et al., 2010) The relationship that I have with XYZ . . . Is very important to me . . . Is something I intend to maintain indefinitely . . . Is something I really care about . . . deserves my maximum effort to maintain

0.92 0.93 0.89 0.81

Notes: Measurement based on a seven-point Likert scale, where 1 ⫽ “strongly disagree” and 7 ⫽ “strongly agree”. All factor loadings significant (p ⬍ 0.001)

Table AII.

0.87 0.42 0.49 0.33 0.64 0.52 0.49 0.43 0.34 0.46 0.38 0.45 0.58 0.51 0.37 0.59 0.46 0.51 0.43

1

2

0.93 0.44 0.40 0.42 0.57 0.43 0.43 0.26 0.37 0.36 0.43 0.39 0.50 0.32 0.41 0.70 0.54 0.45

Note: Square root of the AVE reported on the diagonal

1.58 1.61 1.34 1.81 1.44 1.47 1.21 1.79 1.96 1.79 1.76 1.41 1.76 1.41 1.63 2.03 1.46 1.80 1.37

2.69 2.98 1.88 2.87 2.22 2.25 1.70 3.89 3.75 3.92 3.93 2.11 3.02 2.26 5.20 3.27 2.59 3.18 3.39

1. Intimate accommodation 2. Brand individual recognition 3. Escapism 4. Pastime 5. Familiar social sharing 6. Brand intimacy 7. Brand companionship 8. Novelty surveillance 9. Offers comparison 10. Shopping planning 11. Monetary savings 12. Product oriented daydreaming 13. Directed social sharing 14. Brand community belonging 15. Reading amount 16. Rereading 17. Brand gratitude 18. Direct mail attachment 19. Brand commitment

Table AIII. Descriptives and inter-construct correlation matrix (sample ⫽ 871)

Mean SD

0.96 0.55 0.55 0.57 0.63 0.37 0.30 0.31 0.26 0.68 0.40 0.57 0.27 0.40 0.48 0.45 0.34

3

0.95 0.39 0.39 0.41 0.38 0.25 0.27 0.25 0.50 0.38 0.37 0.37 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.30

4

0.93 0.55 0.56 0.45 0.34 0.44 0.36 0.49 0.74 0.59 0.34 0.47 0.50 0.50 0.47

5

0.95 0.66 0.41 0.24 0.35 0.33 0.56 0.44 0.78 0.30 0.43 0.60 0.49 0.54

6

0.98 0.32 0.26 0.30 0.26 0.50 0.40 0.64 0.21 0.38 0.52 0.40 0.38

7

0.93 0.47 0.56 0.43 0.42 0.52 0.47 0.51 0.49 0.44 0.49 0.46

8

0.96 0.55 0.47 0.29 0.45 0.31 0.39 0.36 0.32 0.35 0.31

9

0.95 0.68 0.30 0.53 0.41 0.45 0.50 0.39 0.50 0.42

10

0.94 0.22 0.46 0.31 0.42 0.42 0.38 0.48 0.40

11

0.94 0.44 0.52 0.29 0.39 0.49 0.43 0.32

12

0.92 0.49 0.41 0.51 0.43 0.52 0.46

13

0.93 0.32 0.45 0.56 0.46 0.50

14

0.93 0.55 0.33 0.47 0.43

15

17

18

19

0.96 0.45 0.93 0.54 0.60 0.94 0.45 0.52 0.50 0.89

16

1562

Constructs


EJM 49,9/10 Appendix III

A relational approach to direct mail consumption

A relational approach to direct mail consumption

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