Turun kauppakorkeakoulu • Turku School of Economics

EMPLOYING DISCRETE EMOTIONS IN FASHION E-COMMERCE MARKETING

Applying the framework of consumer decision process

Bachelor’s Thesis in Marketing

Author: Sasu Olli 500234

Supervisor Ph.D. Leila Hurmerinta

13.11.2014 Turku

Table of contents

1   INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 5  

2   EMOTIONAL MARKETING PARADIGM .............................................................. 7  

2.1   Human emotions and decision-making .......................................................... 7  2.2   Emotional marketing and marketing communications ................................... 8  

3   EMOTIONAL MARKETING IN FASHION E-COMMERCE ............................... 10  

3.1   Interactive marketing communications as an instrument for emotional marketing ...................................................................................................... 10  3.1.1   Defining and rationalizing the concept ............................................ 10  3.1.2   Elements, opportunities, and challenges of interactive marketing

communications ............................................................................... 12  3.2   Characteristics of the fashion e-commerce and emotional marketing .......... 14  

4   APPLYING DISCRETE EMOTIONS IN THE CONSUMER DECISION PROCESS (CDP) .................................................................................................. 16  

4.1   Emotions and CDP ....................................................................................... 16  4.2   The roles of pride, contentment and interest in CDP .................................... 18  

4.2.1   Interest .............................................................................................. 19  4.2.2   Contentment ..................................................................................... 20  4.2.3   Pride ................................................................................................. 21  

5   FROM COMMUNICATION TO EMOTIONAL AROUSAL ................................. 23  

5.1   Interest – Social media .................................................................................. 23  5.2   Contentment – Website ................................................................................. 24  5.3   Pride – E-mail ............................................................................................... 25  

6   CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETERS .............................. 27  

7   SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. 29  

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 31  

List of figures

Figure 1   The interrelationships of the concepts positioned in the marketing mix .. 12  

Figure 2   Aroused emotions in the CDP of fashion e-tail ........................................ 19  

List of tables

Table 1   Key aspects of some of the considerable interactive marketing communication options (adapted from Keller 2009, 147) ................. 13  

Table 2   Emotion specific appraisal dimensions (adapted from Ellsworth & Smith 1988, 324; Lerner & Keltner 2000, 479; Silvia 2005) ....................... 17  

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1 INTRODUCTION

Modern economic theories are based on the idea of rational choice; a default which as-sumes that consumers have all the information, time, and other factors necessary for a utility-maximising decision (Bechara & Damasio 2005, 336–337). However, from the early 1980’s, researchers have recognised the importance of emotions on consumer de-cisions (Holbrook & Hirschman 1982, 132). The central role of emotions in human de-cision-making can be demonstrated by stating that the emotions, “the heart”, of the con-sumer determine the final buying decision and, in the end, lead consumers to act (Ko-tler, Kartajaya & Setiawan 2010, 37). In the postmodern1 consumer society, the emo-tional aspects of the products, such as brand symbols, increasingly influence consumer decisions. The shift towards the consumption of symbols, rather than simply products, forms the basis for the emotional marketing paradigm. Emotional marketing can be de-fined as “a new paradigmatic approach or a new marketing shift, where management (creation, support, evaluation) of the emotional link between the company and the con-sumer (or other market players) becomes the key exchange-stimulating feature”. (Rytel 2010, 31–32.) In practice, this has meant that the focus of marketing communications has shifted from the functional factors, e.g. delivering information, highlighting product features and increasing awareness, to managing perceptions (Thrassou & Vrontis 2009, 514).

Although many studies have examined the importance of emotions on consumer de-cision-making (e.g. Garg & Lerner 2013; Garg, Inman & Mittal 2005; Lerner & Keltner 2000), the role of emotions in the areas of retail business and advertising are under-researched (Gaur, Herjanto & Makkar 2014). Thus, the fields of emotional advertising and retail business are combined, by exploring the role of emotions in consumer deci-sions in the context of fashion e-commerce. Despite the fact that fashion can be seen in many aspects of life, considering the retail context of the thesis, the term fashion is used to refer to products and services, mostly acquired by consumers for personal satisfaction and/or for social prestige (Aksu, Pektaş & Eseoğlu 2011, 327–328). For simplicity, the meaning of fashion is further limited to clothing, shoes and other wearable accessories acquired for the aforementioned reasons. E-commerce refers to “commercial transac-tions conducted electronically on the Internet” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014a).

1 Considering the focus on consumer emotions in the thesis, the term postmodernism is used in the fol-

lowing meaning: “postmodernism is a cultural episode, characterised by a cultural pluralism of styles (of

consumption) and ideologies, a need for hyperreality and self-expression through consumption.” (Gerrit

& Van Raaij 1998, 56)

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According to recent research, discrete emotions of the same valence (e.g. anger and fear) have a different influence on human decisions (Angie, Connelly, Waples & Kligyte 2011, 1417). In line with the aforementioned, the functionalist perspective on emotions suggests that emotions have their own behavioural tendencies and thereby guide human behaviour in an emotion specific way (Johnson-Laird & Oatley 1992, 206–208). Based on these notions, the objective is to examine how different emotions could be deployed in marketing communication, and to explore the means for arousing these emotions in online context. Pride, contentment, and interest, are specifically cho-sen to highlight the distinct attributes and effects of discrete positive emotions. In par-ticular, the purpose is (1.) to understand how interest, contentment, and pride as emo-tions influence consumers in online fashion shopping, (2.) how the different stages of the consumer decision process (CDP) moderate the role of these emotions, and finally, (3.) how marketers could evoke those emotions through interactive marketing commu-nications.

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2 EMOTIONAL MARKETING PARADIGM

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will nev-er forget how you made them feel.”

–Maya Angelou

2.1 Human emotions and decision-making

Neuroscientist Damasio (1995, 29) defines emotion as “a collection of changes in body state and brain state induced in myriad organs and in some brain circuits under the con-trol of a dedicated brain system, which is responding to the content of one’s thoughts relative to a particular entity or event.“ He also distinguishes feelings from emotions by outlining feelings as perceptions of a particular state of a body. In detail, a feeling is the juxtaposition of an event (or entity) connected mental image and the experience of body and brain changes. (Damasio 1995, 21-23.) Therefore, it could be simplified that emo-tions form the basis for feelings, and further, that feelings are the experiences of emo-tions. In short, “emotions are mental states of readiness that arise from cognitive ap-praisals of events or thoughts.” (Bagozzi, Gopinath & Nyer 1999, 184.) The term “mood” is different from “emotion” in terms of intensity and the sense of the cause. Moods are perceived as more obscure and diffuse than emotions are. Affect, in turn, is a more universal concept meaning “a collection of moods and emotions.” (Puccinelli, Goodstein, Grewal, Price, Raghubir & Stewart 2009, 22.) For the clarity of the content, the terms “emotion”, “feeling”, “mood”, and “affect”, are used in these distinct mean-ings throughout the thesis.

Ekman (1972) first classified six basic emotions by investigating human facial ex-pressions. Anger, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and happiness were proposed to func-tion as a base for other emotions. In the psychoevolutionary theory of emotions, Plutchik (1982) categorises eight specific emotions by creating a wheel of emotions. The wheel of emotions consists of primary emotions and primary dyads formed by ad-jacent primary emotions. It contrasts the emotions into four opposing pairs: fear versus anger, surprise versus anticipation, sadness versus joy, and trust versus disgust. All emotions are positioned by their similarity to other emotions, thus depicting the rela-tionships between emotions. The implications of the wheel are that by combining any of the primary emotions a certain emotion can be created, and respectively, by considering a certain emotion the primaries of it could be identified. (ibid.)

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Opposing the expected utility theory2 and the assumption of rational choice, emo-tions have a vital role in human decision-making. Namely, emotions guide human deci-sions by the signalling of anticipated future feelings, which are caused by the decision in question. Thus, without the assistance of emotions, humans are found to choose dis-advantageously, even though they had all the necessary information and knew the most beneficial course of action of a certain situation. (Bechara & Damasio 2005.) Frequent initial studies in the realm of emotions and human cognition examined the effect of emotions on decision-making, by treating emotions as mainly positive or negative and thus used a valence-based approach (see Clore, Schwarz & Conway 1994; Forgas 1995; Schwarz 1990). This approach does not distinguish whether different emotions of the same valence (e.g. anger and fear) have a different influence on human decisions (Angie et al. 2011). However, more recently, researchers have been interested in examining the impact of specific emotions on human decisions (see Garg & Lerner 2013; Garg, Inman & Mittal 2005; Lerner & Keltner 2000) and consequently the influence of emotions have found to be emotion-specific (Angie et al. 2011).

2.2 Emotional marketing and marketing communications

Consoli (2009, 1000) states that emotional marketing strives to answer questions such as “What are the attitudes, behaviours, preferences and emotions of those who make purchases?” “How does the mind of consumers reacts [sic] when it is stimulated by ad-vertising, promotion, while they are in a supermarket or navigate in an e-commerce site?” While these questions are helpful for understanding the point of view of emotion-al marketing, they do not directly explain its core. Majumdar (2012, 70), in turn, sum-marises that the focus of emotional marketing is to win over the customer’s “heart”, thus giving a simplified but representational description. The new shift in the postmod-ern era is characterised by the growing importance of symbols and self-expression in the society, where consumers define themselves, as well as others, through the symbols they consume. Products and services have a certain image and emotional attributes that create symbolic meanings for the consumption of the products, through which consum-ers seek to define and express themselves. As follows, symbols became the main object of exchange, instead of products and services as such. Therefore, the value of products

2 The theory of “expected utility” regards consumers as rational actors who make economical choices

based on the expected utility of the alternatives. The term utility represents the value for the consumer.

The theory is based on the following axioms defining the rational consumer: completeness, transitivity,

independence and continuity. (von Neumann & Morgenstern 1944.)

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is in their meanings, which consumers mentally link to products. The symbols arouse consumers’ emotions, which, in turn, function as attention enticements. Therefore, the shift towards the consumption of symbols is the main premise for the emotional market-ing paradigm. (Rytel 2010, 31–36.) Based on the aforementioned notions, Rytel (2010, 32, 36) defines emotional marketing as a concept, which aims to create and support an emotional relationship between the consumer and the market. Additionally, he gives a more extensive definition, where the focus is on the management of emotional relation-ship and exchange of symbols between the company, its products, and the consumer. This refined definition allows giving attention to the exchange process between the con-sumer and the company. With regard to this definition, it could be seen that the valuable meanings for the consumer are not merely an outcome of the consumption process, but are already created during the process of exchange. In this thesis, the means of emotion-al marketing are examined in relation to the consumer decision process, and thus this definition of emotional marketing is used.

In line with the new shift in the postmodern society, Kotler et al. (2010, 3–4) argue that marketing has evolved from a product-centric era through a customer-oriented one to the currently rising values-driven era. In the new era consumers are perceived as a whole human beings and consumers’ minds, spirits and hearts are at the centre of the focus. The new values-driven approach states that the purpose of brand positioning is to evoke the customers’ minds to deliberate the decision in question, while brand differen-tiation is needed to confirm the buying decision. Finally, the emotions will determine the final decision and lead consumers to act. In the new symbol consumption culture, the role of emotional marketing is to create and communicate the product/brand sym-bols to consumers (Rytel 2010). That said, it could be inferred that arousing the action stimulating emotions in consumers’ minds by creating and communicating symbols, is the key purpose of the emotional marketing concept.

Whereas emotional marketing can be seen as a new trend in marketing, a shift to-wards the management – by all means of marketing – of emotional relationship with consumers (Rytel 2010), marketing communications captures particularly the part of connecting brands to certain feelings and emotions (Keller 2009, 141). Quoting Kotler and Keller (2012, 476), “Marketing communications are the means by which firms at-tempt to inform, persuade and remind consumers – directly or indirectly – about the products and brands they sell. In a sense, marketing communications represent the ‘voice’ of the company and its brands and are a means by which it can establish a dia-logue and build relationships with and among consumers.” In accordance with the pre-ceding definition, building a relationship between the company and the customer is spe-cifically a responsibility of marketing communications, which is, therefore, an integral part of emotional marketing. Based on what was said, the topic of emotional marketing is principally examined through the instruments of marketing communications.

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3 EMOTIONAL MARKETING IN FASHION E-COMMERCE

3.1 Interactive marketing communications as an instrument for emotional marketing

3.1.1 Defining and rationalizing the concept

As mentioned earlier, today’s consumers construct their identity by combining symbols and are involved in the formation of symbolic meanings. For marketing communica-tions, this means that the marketers cannot predict and control the meanings of their offerings, as the meanings are partially, at least, constructed by the consumers. By try-ing to retain exclusive control of the meanings, companies will almost certainly lose it. As consumers inevitably participate in this production of symbolic meanings, compa-nies should perceive consumers as co-creators of the products and services. (Christen-sen, Torp & Firat 2005, 159, 164.) Therefore, today’s environmental conditions call for a definition for marketing communications that emphasises the interactive approach to communication.

Today’s marketers must be online to reach customers’ perception efficiently, since consumers spend increasingly more time in that environment (Keller 2009, 147). This has led to the concept of online marketing communications. As previously stated, mar-keting communications is a vital subcategory of the emotional marketing paradigm. In particular, it is a set of different communicational instruments for organisations and consists of eight different types of communication: advertising, sales promotion, events & experiences, public relations & publicity, direct marketing, interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing and personal selling. (Kotler & Keller 2012, 178.) Thus, in a general meaning, online marketing communications could be interpreted to refer to the use of different modes of marketing communication in the medium of the Internet. Nonetheless, considering the aim of the thesis to examine emotions arousing communi-cation in the online retail environment (also, e-tail), as well as taking into account the prevailing postmodernist conditions, an appropriate concept should emphasise the inter-active nature of communication and comprehend the relevant communication channels for e-commerce. Moreover, due to the rapid change and development of digital technol-ogy, the notion should be flexible enough to be able to adapt to the ever-changing digi-tal setting (Merisavo 2008, 18).

Internet marketing, online marketing, online advertising and Internet advertising, all principally refer to the use of the Internet as a medium for conducting marketing strate-

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gies. From the marketing mix perspective, the online environment is a marketing medi-um among others, hence it addresses online environment mainly as a media channel. (Salminen 2009, 15–16.) In turn, according to Merisavo (2008, 19–20), the concept of digital marketing communications (DMC) captures the essence of all digital channels (e.g. email, mobile phones, digital TV, Internet), because it includes also the channels that do not necessarily require Internet connection. Other terms, such as e-marketing and interactive marketing, are associated with the meaning of digital marketing, but are not as extensive as they are either limited to a certain channel or require the use of In-ternet (ibid.). Merisavo (2008, 20) defines DMC as “communication and interaction between a company and brand and its customers using digital channels (e.g. the Inter-net, email, mobile phones, and digital TV) and information technology.” This definition gives justified attention to the interactive communication between the company and the customer. However, it may be too wide with respect to the thesis’s subject, where the main focus is particularly in the online retail environment and not in digital platforms in general. Moreover, as e-commerce is by definition “commercial transactions conducted electronically on the Internet” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014), the Internet is an inherent part of e-commerce. Therefore using the given definition of DMC (stating that it does not necessarily require the Internet) would be partially misleading.

Interactive marketing communications’ is a part of the marketing communications mix and consists of different communicational options for online marketers. Important options include websites, display & search ads and e-mails, for instance. The joining factors of the notion are a possibility to customise messages, timeliness and interactivi-ty. (Kotler & Keller 2012, 492, 540–545.) It can be deduced from the above that the emphasis of the concept is on the communicational part of marketing and that it takes into account the interaction between the company and the consumers. Second, regarding the continuous improvement of digital technology, the concept does not seem to limit the communication to certain channels, but underlines the online context of the commu-nication. Accordingly, the notion of interactive marketing adequately fulfils the re-quirements of the new postmodern society and serves the main purpose of the thesis. Figure 1 illustrates the disposition of the interactive marketing communications in McCarthy’s marketing mix of four P’s (1960), and depicts its relationship to marketing communications and DMC.

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Figure 1 The interrelationships of the concepts positioned in the marketing mix

In Figure 1, each boundary adds a new restriction for the concept and thus the outer layers of the illustration encompass the features of the inner concepts. Therefore, as visualised, interactive marketing communications can be viewed as promotional market-ing tools specialised for the online digital environment. So as to illustrate the relation-ship between e-commerce and interactive marketing communications, it can be stated that e-commerce refers to the commercial transactions on the Internet as such, whereas (interactive) marketing communications are means for advancing and facilitating the business (Salminen 2009, 17).

3.1.2 Elements, opportunities, and challenges of interactive marketing communi-cations

In terms of interaction and individualisation, the Internet allows many options to mar-keters. Targeted messages can be sent to a specific type of customer and ads can be placed on websites that have an audience similar to the marketer’s target group (Keller 2009, 148). Online advertisers have a possibility to target based on the behaviour of a consumer, e.g., offers of running shoes on can be sent by email or shown on a website

Emotional marketing

Product   Price Place Promotion

Marketing communications

DMC

Interactive marketing communications

The interface of digital setting

Requires Internet connection

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for a specific consumer who often visits marathon related websites (see Grewal, Ai-lawadi, Gauri, Hall, Kopalle & Robertson 2011). Moreover, visibility on search engines allows marketers to create awareness of the brand when the customer is searching for information (Keller 2009, 148) and thereby potentially penetrate into the customer’s buying process at the time when the customer’s need has already been established. One of the major advantages of online marketing is the possibility for tracking the effects and results of the marketing investments. New web analytics systems allow monitoring of customer responses and assessing the results of marketing efforts (Li & Kannan, 2014, 41). Table 1 provides a selective overview of some of the key tools for interactive marketing, adapted from Keller (2009, 147). It is important to note that the tools are not separate, but can be integrated and designed to support each other (Keller 2009, 149–151). For example email ads may lead the consumer to the company’s website and the website could include a prompt to join an e-mail list. Additionally, on social media, a company might create its offering-related content and hence complement the image provided on other channels, as well as to increase the number of visitors on the compa-ny website.

Table 1 Key aspects of some of the considerable interactive marketing communi-cation options (adapted from Keller 2009, 147)

1.) Social media – A platform for creating and exchanging user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, 61). Allows companies to reach consumers at low cost, to enhance trust, and to engage and connect with customers through valuable content. (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström & Freundt 2014, 6) 2.) Websites – Websites are important for e.g. expressing the purpose, history, values, offering and visions of the company. In addition it must be designed to be attractive at first sight and to yield repeat visits. 3.) E-mail – Allows personalised ads to be sent directly to consumers’ email addresses with a minimal cost. 4.) Search ads – Marketers pay for search terms in search engines trough continuous auction. The terms function as a proxy for consumers’ wants and the search engines show the relevant links for consumers triggered by the search terms. 5.) Display ads – Small text and/or picture ads that are placed to a certain websites cho-sen by the advertiser. The cost of the ad is determined by the amount of clicks or alter-natively by the number of impressions.

In addition to the selected four key categories provided by Keller (2–5 on Table 1), social media may provide a cost-efficient way to reach and engage customers with the company. Social media can be defined as a platform for creating and exchanging user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, 61). Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Most importantly, it allows companies to directly interact and create the company related content with and among consumers. Thereby social media offers organisations an interactive way to communicate and engage with

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consumers. (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010.) Moreover, an extensive empirical study (a sam-ple of 777 marketing executives across the globe) identified the company home pages, e-mail and social media as the most frequently used digital channels among companies (Leeflang et. al. 2014, 3). For these reasons, social media is added to the key interactive marketing instruments shown in Table 1.

Despite the possibilities and benefits the Internet allows for marketing communica-tions, the power is emphatically on consumers. Online consumers have the advantage of being able to compare prices easily, a wide range of offerings to choose from, and in the end, an authority to the content they decide to consume. (Keller 2009, 148.) From the symbol consumption perspective (see Rytel 2010), the latter could mean that ultimately it is the consumers who create the ultimate meaning for the companies’ online messages and other activity. Thus the consumers do not merely have the power to choose from the alternatives, but are also in control (at least partly) of the contents’ symbolic meaning they choose to consume. Namely, in the US alone, 115 million individuals are estimated to create content monthly in 2013 (eMarketer 2009). Consequently marketers’ control over their messages and other marketing activities may be reduced (Keller 2009, 148). The implications are that interactive marketing communications should be used to indi-vidualise the symbolic exchange, which is based on emotional wants. The individualisa-tion can be conducted by emotional marketing as the same symbols can elicit different emotional meanings for different consumers. (Rytel 2010, 32, 36.) Moreover, the com-munication should allow flexibility on the meanings communicated towards consumers, since the meanings are ultimately created with them. Further, companies should pursue interaction with and among its consumers so as to participate in the co-creation of the symbolic meanings. (Christensen et al. 2005, 164–165.) The versatility of interactive marketing communications allows responding to the above-mentioned communication-related requirements of today’s (postmodernist) online environment. Chapter 4 exam-ines how the subject of managing these challenges can be addressed through emotions arousing interactive marketing communications.

3.2 Characteristics of the fashion e-commerce and emotional mar-keting

Research company IDC estimates the total size of worldwide e-commerce to be equiva-lent to 13.8% of the total world economy. J.P. Morgan anticipates business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce (excluding travel) to exceed $1 trillion by 2014, which would be almost double the figure of 2010. (Oxford Economics 2011, 9.) Presented figures high-light the growing importance of the online marketing communication. Fashion e-tail, which is used as a synonym for online fashion retail business, holds a significant share

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of the total revenue in the B2C e-commerce. In the US, fashion industry (i.e. apparel and accessories) is projected to account 20% of the total e-tail sales by 2016 (Statista 2014).

Socialising has been found to be one of the key drivers of consumer shopping behav-iour. In other words, consumers do not go shopping just to acquire goods, but to spend time with each other. (Kang 2010, 5.) The social aspect of shopping has found to in-crease shopping satisfaction and to elicit positive emotions (ibid., 73). When the shop-ping environment is taken on-line, the social aspect of shopping is naturally at risk. This emphasises the role of online environment in the shopping experience. (Kawaf & Tagg 2012, 162.) Kim and Lennon (2010) examined the influence of the (apparel) e-tail envi-ronment to consumer emotions and behaviour. They suggested that consumers are par-ticularly emotional decision-makers in the fashion e-tail context, resulting from the im-possibility of trying on, or other way tangibly testing the product. In other words, con-sumers follow their emotions due to imperfect external information. Furthermore, it was concluded that consumers’ experience of pleasure might positively influence their per-ception of the adequacy of the external information. The perceived amount of infor-mation reduced the perceived risks associated with the products and the online transac-tions. (ibid., 423) Forsythe, Liu, Shannon and Gardner (2006) suggested three dimen-sions of risk as specifically prominent in the online shopping context: financial risk, product risk and time/convenience risk. In turn, four dimensions of perceived benefits were established: shopping convenience, product selection, ease of shopping and en-joyment. It should be added that the risks were found to be negatively, and the benefits positively associated with frequency of visiting and purchasing, and money and time spent on the website.

Also, it is worth noting that following the previously addressed rationale of symbol consumption culture (Rytel 2010), and considering the emotional and social nature of fashion products, it could be assumed that fashion plays a particularly important role in the postmodern consumption culture. Conclusively, as emotions create the demand for the products emphatically in the fashion world (Cho & Lee 2005, 17), the role of emo-tions is particularly important in the fashion realm. Hence, arousing positive emotions becomes a vital part of successful fashion marketing.

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4 APPLYING DISCRETE EMOTIONS IN THE CONSUMER DECISION PROCESS (CDP)

Consumers’ goals depend of their current stage on the decision-process (Puccinelli et al. 2009, 16). Therefore it is important for marketers to understand the customer decision process when designing a communication strategy. Additionally, specific emotions have a different influence on human decisions, regardless of the valence (positive/negative) of the emotion, and certain situational attributes may arouse some particular emotions (Angie et al. 2011, 1417). Consequently, the positive/negative dichotomy is insufficient for assessing the efficiency of the emotional marketing (ibid., 1394). Therefore it is fundamental to examine the role of different emotions on consumers’ decisions and fi-nally look means for arousing the relevant ones.

4.1 Emotions and CDP

Human behaviour results from the influence of different internal and external factors. Internal factors are individually dependent and include disposition, values, attitudes and life philosophy, for instance. External factors, in turn, are environmentally dependent. Examples of external factors include physical surroundings, culture, friends, family, and the social environment of the consumer in general. (Thrassou & Vrontis 2009, 505.)

The consumer decision process (CDP) model, established by Blackwell, Miniard and Engel (2006), outlines the sequence of decisions made in the act of buying. It comprises seven different stages: need recognition, search for information, evaluation of alterna-tives, purchase, consumption, post-consumption evaluation and divestment. The first three stages occur before the transaction is made and the last three after doing so, there-by dividing the model into three parts: pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. The model takes into account the influence of external and internal factors to human deci-sions. The environment (external factors) naturally affects the consumers’ shopping experience. However, the consumer experience might be different, regardless of the unaltered environment, due to different goals of the consumers. These goals, in turn, depend on the stage of the consumers’ CDP. (Puccinelli et al. 2009, 16.) For example, a wide variety of clothes might be frustrating for a consumer who knows exactly the product he/she wants, since finding it may be difficult. However, it can be assumed that a wide selection is helpful for consumers who are still evaluating the alternatives.

According to Puccinelli et al. (2009, 22–23) consumer’s mood, emotions and feel-ings influence customer decisions on every stage of the decision process. Positive affec-tive state possessing consumers make different decisions than consumers with a nega-tive affective state. For example, a positive feeling evoked by an advertisement may

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make a customer less interested in reviewing the tangible details of the product and more impressed of its bare appearance (information search stage). In the purchase stage, a bad mood may make the customer pay less for he product and an angry customer is less likely to positively review the support provided by the service company.

According to cognitive-appraisal theories, different appraisal dimensions differenti-ate the emotions of same valence from each other. Following this realm, Smith and Ellsworth (1985) attributed different appraisal dimensions underlying certain emotions: attentional activity, certainty, control, anticipated effort, pleasantness and responsibility. Control, certainty, and responsibility are underlying anger, for instance, and therefore distinguish anger from other negative emotions. (Lerner & Keltner 2000, 476.) Apply-ing the differentiating appraisal dimensions, Ellsworth and Smith (1988) identified sev-en different positive emotions: surprise, interest, hope/confidence, challenge, tranquilli-ty, playfulness and love. Tranquillity (used as synonym for contentment) and interest are further addressed in the thesis, due to their highly distinct attributes. In addition, outside of the aforementioned list of emotions, pride is taken into consideration to pro-vide even more diversity. Table 2 provides a collective review of the appraisals of these emotions. The table is complied from the observations of Ellsworth and Smith (1988, 324), Lerner and Keltner (2000, 479), and Silvia (2005).

Table 2 Emotion specific appraisal dimensions (adapted from Ellsworth & Smith 1988, 324; Lerner & Keltner 2000, 479; Silvia 2005)

Interest Contentment Pride

Anticipated effort - Low - Certainty - High - Safety - High - Others’ responsibility - - Low Pleasantness - - High Novelty-complexity High - - Coping potential High - -

Starting from the upper left corner on Table 2, the dimensions of anticipated effort, certainty, responsibility and pleasantness come from the work of Ellsworth and Smith (1988, 324), safety from Lerner and Keltner (2000, 479), and the dimensions of novelty-complexity and coping potential from Silvia (2005). A few of the dimensions require explanation. Certainty refers to the evaluation of the predictability of future situations. Anticipated effort is the perceived degree of physical or mental effort. Others’ responsi-bility refers to whether a cause of a situation or an event, can be attributed to something else than oneself. (Lerner & Keltner 2000, 479.) Novelty-complexity refers to apprais-

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ing something as new, surprising, and complex, or other way difficult to comprehend. Finally, coping potential is the experiencer’s perception whether an event or a situation is manageable by the experiencer. (Silvia 2005.) The aforementioned emotions and their respective appraisals are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.2.

The idea that emotions have their own behavioural effects comes from functional theories of emotion. Importantly, the perception of a certain emotion focuses one’s cog-nitive processes (attention, memory and judgement) to the causal event and provides an opportunity to address the source of the emotion and thereby act accordingly. (Johnson-Laird & Oatley 1992, 204–208.) Lerner and Keltner (2000, 476–478) suggest that each emotion has a tendency to evaluate future situations through the emotion specific ap-praisal dimensions that initially evoked the emotion. These are called appraisal tenden-cies. Thus, the tendencies of emotions arise from the emotion specific appraisals of events. These tendencies affect the decisions made to address the emotion-arousing stimuli. Consequently, emotions guide human cognition rationally to relevant events, but may also influence on other, unrelated events. (Lerner & Keltner 2000, 476–477.) Therefore, for example, a positive feeling caused by a sunny day, might lead to particu-larly positive perception of a certain shopping experience.

4.2 The roles of pride, contentment and interest in CDP

Pride and contentment are chosen to demonstrate the possible opposing effects of dif-ferent positive emotions on consumption (see Griskevicius, Shiota & Nowlis 2010). Additionally, the strong bond between consumption and one’s self-image implies that pride might be a particularly relevant emotion in this context. Arousing interest, in turn, can be viewed as an inherent part of marketing communication. Naturally, by arousing interest marketers could increase the possibility that consumers try and finally engage with their product. Thus from the marketing communications perspective, the im-portance of evoking interest is obvious.

Figure 2 represents a hypothesised model of the role of interest, contentment, and pride in the consumer decision process of the fashion context, and depicts the conceptu-al framework of the thesis. As the figure implies, interactive marketing communications are means for arousing specific emotions, and these emotions, in turn, have a certain roles in the CDP. Practical suggestions for arousing interest, contentment, and pride are presented in Chapter 5.

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Figure 2 Aroused emotions in the CDP of fashion e-tail

Figure 2 visualises that consumers experience emotions throughout the consumer de-cision process (Puccinelli et al. 2009, 22–23). Based on the nature of each emotion, the relevance of each emotion varies at different stages of the process. The figure presents the hypothetically relevant positions of interest, contentment, and pride in the CDP of fashion shopping. The attributes of each emotion and the implications of those attributes are discussed in the following chapters of interest, contentment, and pride, respectively. The figure does not imply that these emotions are always important at the presented stages, or that they are not important at other stages, but presents the stages where those emotions may have an essential effect (positive or negative).

4.2.1 Interest

Often interest is not considered as a typical emotion; it is missing from many categori-sations of basic emotions, including Plutchik’s (1982) famous classification. However, in terms of the components that define emotions, interest indeed is an emotion. Specifi-cally, interest has specific underlying appraisal dimensions, as well as certain physio-logical effects. (Silvia 2008, 56.) According to Ellsworth and Smith (1988) its appraisal dimensions are perceived pleasantness and high attentional activity. However, Silvia (2005) concluded that the central appraisals of interest may be the event’s perceived

INTERACTIVE MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Interest Pride Contentment

Consumer emotions Consumer emotions Consumer emotions

CONSUMER DECISION PROCESS

Pre-purchase Purchase Post-purchase

Hubristic Pride

Authentic Pride

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novelty-complexity and it’s coping potential. Novelty-complexity refers to the evalua-tion of a situation as new, complex, surprising, mysterious or ambiguous. The coping potential refers to the appraisal whether an individual is able to comprehend and deal with the novel and complex situation. Therefore, situations that feel new and novel, but are perceived as understandable, are often interesting (Silvia 2008, 58). From a wide perspective, these dimensions can be seen as related to attentional activity dimension, proposed by Ellsworth and Smith (1988). Nonetheless, since already a common experi-ence indicates that also unpleasant events may be interesting, the appraisal dimension of pleasantness has been left out. (Silvia 2005.) The appraisals of interest are compiled on Table 2.

Interest draws attention to things and motivates the experimentation of new. Rarely can one anticipate the utility or pleasantness of things beforehand with absolute certain-ty; therefore, it is important to have a motivation to try something new. (Silvia 2008, 57–58.) From a similar functional perspective, interest serves as a motivator for explo-ration and comprehension of matters, and therefore it is vital for human learning. In addition, interest seems to reduce the perceived uncertainty and anxiety of future events (Peterson & Seligman 2004, 126–128). Izard (1977, 216) states that interest creates “a feeling of wanting to investigate, become involved, or extend or expand the self by in-corporating new information and having new experiences with the person or object that has stimulated the interest.” Following this definition, interest could be used to facilitate customer involvement with the business, and thereby increase brand loyalty. Moreover, it is hard to imagine how marketers could direct consumers through even the first, need recognition stage of the CDP, without evoking at least a slight interest in consumers’ mind. The motivating aspect of interest in experiencing something new opens an obvi-ous possibility for marketers to entice customers to try their products. However, interest may also be beneficial for attenuating the risks associated with online shopping, since it has been found to reduce the perceived anxiety and uncertainty of future events. Reduc-ing product and time/convenience risks might be particularly relevant from this point of view. Accordingly, interest seems to be especially significant factor on the pre-purchase phases of the consumer decision-process. Nonetheless, as it might increase customer involvement, interest has a distinct role also on the consumption stage of the CDP. The aforementioned roles of interest in the CDP are presented in Figure 2.

4.2.2 Contentment

Contentment (also tranquillity and serenity) is a positive emotion caused by the percep-tion of safety, a high degree of certainty, and a low effort (see Table 2) (Ellsworth & Smith 1988, 329). Fredrickson (1998, 306) proposes that contentment stimulates a need

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for re-constructing one’s identity and world-view, by incorporating elements of recent experiences into one’s self-perception, as well as urges to appreciatively enjoy the pre-vailing life. It is distinct from pleasure in terms of physicality, since pleasure is a cause of meeting physical needs (e.g. eating, sleeping) and contentment is created through the aforementioned perceptions. These appraisals lead to increased intellectual openness, as well as to the construction of new world-views. Thus, it could be said that contentment leads to cognitive, rather than physical tendencies. (Ibid.) In line with these elements, Griskevicius et al. (2010) demonstrated that contentment increased desirability of lounging clothes (used at home). Conversely, it slightly reduced the desire for purchas-ing clothes suitable for going out. Even though Griskevicius et al. (2010) did not make the physical versus cognitional distinction between pleasure and contentment, the find-ings highlight the importance of paying attention to discrete positive emotions.

In the fashion industry, contentment might be a suitable emotion for selling comfort clothing used at calm environments. Traditional English clothing company Sunspel’s cashmere and wool lounging pants and sweaters sold on their website, might be a good example for a place where contentment could be used to increase sales. Additionally, since Christmas is often linked to safety and peacefulness, it could be suggested that feeling contentment is a common emotional want during Christmas holidays and thus valuable driver for Christmas sales. It follows that contentment may be an important emotion to elicit for a certain type of products or/and at a certain events. In the CDP, contentment can be proposed to have an influence on the following stages (see Figure 2 for overview): need recognition – “I want something cozy to wear at home” – evalua-tion of alternatives/point of purchase – “This product feels somehow nicer than others” – consumption – “This really feels suitable to wear at Christmas”. Finally, examining the implications of the receptiveness aspect in contentment (Fredrickson 1998, 306) could be valuable for future marketing communications.

4.2.3 Pride

Oxford Dictionaries (2014b) defines pride as “a feelings of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of one’s close associates, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.” In accordance with the appraisal tendency approach, a proud person presumably attributes the responsibility of a certain positive event to the self (see Table 2) (Lerner & Keltner 2000, 479). Consequently, pride increases an individual’s tendency to draw attention to oneself in public settings and supposedly functions to express one’s success, which, in turn, facilitates social sta-tus (Tracy & Robins 2004, 197). In a study exploring the influence of discrete emotions on behaviour, Lerner and Keltner (2000) concluded that pride increased the desire for

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products suitable for public displays and expression of the self. Therefore it is reasona-ble to anticipate that in the context of fashion shopping, pride is a significant factor in influencing consumer decisions. Nonetheless, despite these seemingly superfluous fac-ets of pride, it can also promote individual’s persistence, empathy and sound self-esteem (Cheng, Tracy & Henrich 2010). This arises from the dualistic essence of pride; namely, it can be either authentic or hubristic. The former refers to pro-social side of pride, resulting from one’s accomplishments, and the latter to more hostile, narcissistic side of pride, resulting from attributing good things to one’s natural superiority (Tracy, Shariff & Cheng 2010, 164–166).

Griskevicius et al. (2010) suggest that clothes’ natural wearing environment moder-ates the influence of different emotions on consumption. Especially authentic pride was found to enhance the desire for public display clothing (shoes, dresses etc.), but it was not a significant factor for clothing used mainly at home (pyjamas, loungewear etc.). In this case, pride functioned as a cause for product’s desirability. It should be noted that the price of the product did not significantly moderate this relationship. A study of McFerran, Aquino and Tracy (2014) indicated that the role of pride is twofold in the consumption of luxury goods. First, authentic pride increased the inclination to buy products deemed as luxurious, also for privately used products. Second, hubristic pride functioned as a consequence of luxury consumption. The term luxury was used to refer to high prestige products, bought by persons with high status. Figure 2 depicts the sig-nificant role of authentic in the pre-purchase stages of the CDP and presents hubristic pride as a possible consequence of the consumption (especially luxury). Considering the results of both studies, it might be that a product’s perceived luxuriousness eliminates the necessity of public setting for the influence of pride. It can also be hypothesised that pride has a particularly significant effect on publicly used luxury goods, but research on this specific case needs to be done.

The findings indicate that arousing customers’ pride might be highly efficient for the marketers of luxurious fashion products. On the pre-purchase stages, evoking feelings of pride could be used to increase consumers’ tendency to choose a specific product. On the consumption and post-consumption stages, making customers to feel proud of them-selves, or about a particular product, could ideally lead to enhanced brand loyalty. De-riving from this, it may be that at least in the case of luxurious products, pride is an im-portant factor at every stage of the CDP. Additionally, pride’s potential effects are prominent at the pre-purchase stages of non-luxury goods, used at public settings.

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5 FROM COMMUNICATION TO EMOTIONAL AROUSAL

Since emotions do not arise directly from events, but from individuals’ own appraisals of the events, the emotions elicited by certain stimuli may vary (Silvia 2008, 58). There-fore designing an emotional communication strategy may not be a straightforward task. Still, it is possible to anticipate humans’ emotional responses to situations and events through the appraisal dimensions of the emotions.

New technology provides an opportunity for monitoring the customer’s buying jour-ney (Li & Kannan 2014, 40) and thereby targeting messages at desired points of the CDP. How could marketers arouse emotions by the means of interactive marketing communications in the contemporary environment? This question is addressed specifi-cally by using interest, pride and contentment as example emotions. As indicated in Chapter 3, interactive marking communications offer multiple instruments and channels for communication between the company and the consumers (see Table 1). The follow-ing channels receive particular attention: 1.) social media, 2.) company website and, 3.) e-mail. These three channels are chosen for their interactive nature, which facilitates the objective of arousing emotions. However the suggestions can often be extended to other instruments as well. It should be noted that this chapter addresses only a certain tools of interactive marketing communications. Important aspects of online marketing, such as search engine optimisation (for more about SEO, see Salenius 20133 (in Finnish)), are out of scope of the thesis. Also, the channels and emotions are exemples; they are not meant to depict a comprehensive model for delivering emotions through interactive marketing communications. Instead, the means for emotional arousal in the e-tail con-text are presented to provide pragmatic examples of online emotional marketing. The following examples are proposed bearing in mind the characteristics of fashion e-tail environment.

5.1 Interest – Social media

It is natural that many forms of marketing messages include text. Company websites, search ads, social media messages and emails all conventionally include at least a phrase or two. Hence making promotional texts interesting is a rather ubiquitous matter in marketing communication and it applies to every interactive marketing communica-tion instrument presented in the thesis. However, social media receives a special atten-

3 Salenius, T. (2013) Hakukoneoptimointi. Bachelor’s thesis. Turku School of Economics, Turku.

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tion in this chapter. What makes text interesting? The underlying appraisals of interest, novelty-complexity and coping potential, require novel and surprising points with com-prehension enhancing aspects (Silvia 2008, 58–59). Studies of educational research (Sadoski 2001; Silvia 2006) support this notion by indicating that concrete, coherent, and easily comprehensible material with vivid, novel, unexpected and complicated ele-ments predict the perceived interestingness of a text. Therefore marketers should aim at easy to read messages with intellectually challenging content. This applies also to pro-motional material other than text. To arouse interest, producing rather complex, but still comprehensive content, should be successful. (Silvia 2008, 59.)

According to Ellsworth and Smith (1988, 326–328), interest is often experienced in situations perceived as important to the subject. Social media allows companies to be in direct contact with customers and to co-create content with them. Thus, companies can be interesting in social media by creating content that is significant for the customers (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), yet at the same time, intellectually challenging (Silvia, 2008).

Moreover, in the contemporary consumption culture, where symbols are the objects of consumption (Rytel 2010), the content created must remain flexible. Companies can’t fully determine in advance the meanings that consumers will inevitably attach to the marketing messages. (Christensen et al. 2005, 164–165.). Finally, while the products in the fashion world are symbolic, the value of the symbols comes from their power to unify consumers. Consumers are interested in positioning themselves in different groups of likeminded people by the consumption of certain symbols. (ibid., 159) It can be sug-gested that social media is an exceptionally favourable platform for the interaction be-tween likeminded people. For this reason, promotional communication in social media could be designed to facilitate a creation of social groups, which share a certain desira-ble symbolic meanings related to the brand (e.g. creative, urban and youthful – Vans). Thus, if a specific a consumer wanted to be linked with a certain social group, he or she could buy the product with such meanings.

5.2 Contentment – Website

For most e-tailers the company website is the main distribution channel of products. Simultaneously, it often functions as a vital interaction channel between the company and it’s consumers. (Kawaf & Tagg 2012, 163.) Jones, Spence and Vallaster (2008) propose a model of six different website factors influencing the emotional experiences of the customers. These emotion creating factors include website telepresence, chal-lenge, interaction speed, machine memory, and social interactions. Telepresence refers

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to the vividness of the website, i.e. to a diverse and quality media attributes (e.g. videos and images) and to the level of interactivity. The website interactivity means the amount of controllable elements on the website as well as the functionality of those elements. On the fashion e-tail, these elements might include a possibility for zooming in order to get a closer look of the garments. Thus, as a whole, telepresence refers to the website’s ability to act like a natural physical shopping environment. The term challenge concerns the relationship between the consumer’s capabilities to use the website, and the chal-lenges on the website. Machine memory refers simply to the website’s capability of storing the information of the customer on the website, in order to make future visits easier (e.g. customer does not have to fill address information at every visit). Social interactions denote a provided opportunity for customers to interact with each other on the website. Options for this may include, for example, a possibility for rating and commenting products on the website.

The implications of the model are that the different elements can be designed to cre-ate an emotion that the customer connects to the brand (Jones et al. 2008, 425). If the marketer wishes to arouse contentment, the elements should be aligned with the ap-praisals of safety, high level of certainty, and a low effort (Ellsworth & Smith 1988, 329). This may mean that the website is simplistic and easy to use (low challenge), and that it emphasises aspects traditionally deemed as safe, such as natural fabrics, and tra-ditional and long history (safety and certainty).

5.3 Pride – E-mail

Given that pride has been found to increase the human tendency to buy luxury goods and products suitable for public settings (see McFerran et al. 2014; Griskevicius et al. 2010), it is interesting to consider what kind of marketing communication could elicit especially the authentic feelings of pride. A Rolex, for instance, have recently displayed advertisements with a slogan “A crown for every achievement.” which is seemingly an attempt to arouse consumers’ pride. (McFerran et al. 2014, 469.)

E-mail marketing is a particularly important instrument for building a customer-company relationship. Pavlov, Melville and Plice (2008) argue that e-mail advertising is twice as profitable as other general instruments of online marketing (e.g. display and search ads). Web analytics provide possibilities for customising messages based on cus-tomer data (e.g. Kotler & Keller 2012, 492; Li & Kannan 2014, 41), and thus individu-alised e-mails could be sent to arouse customer’s feelings of pride. Permission-based e-mail marketing is based on a customer’s subscription to a certain e-mail list, ergo dis-tinguishing it from unsolicited e-mails, known as spam. (Ellis-Chadwick & Doherty

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2012, 843.) However, the subject- and headlines of the e-mail must be interesting enough to receive customer’s attention, which again, highlights the importance of inter-est. If the customer does not open the e-mail, the opportunity for arousing pride is natu-rally lost. (Ellis-Chadwick & Doherty 2012, 847.) After arousing the initial interest, customer involvement can be facilitated most efficiently by the email’s personalisation, interactivity and direct links to the e-tailer’s webpage (ibid,. 848).

Deriving again from the appraisal dimensions, authentic pride could be elicited by highlighting the achievements of a consumer, because the most significantly predicting antecedent of pride is an appraisal of attributing a valuable attained achievement to one’s own merit (Griskevicius et al. 2010, 240). Marketers could, for instance, send congratulating messages to customers who had recently bought a certain product. Or if the customer happens to be from a high status city, such as New York, for instance, highlighting the city’s superiority could possibly lead to feelings of pride. Additionally, the e-mails could include pictures of legitimately successful people using the same products the customer has recently bought to mentally link such products to deserved success. These actions could, at least in principle, evoke even the feelings of authentic pride, which was found to be especially significant predictor of a purchase of luxury goods (McFerran et al. 2014).

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6 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETERS

First, the objective of the thesis was to understand how discrete emotions influence on consumer decisions in the fashion e-tail environment. Pride, contentment, and interest were specifically chosen to explore the differences that positive emotions may have on human behaviour. Second, the purpose was to explore how different stages of CDP af-fect consumers’ emotional wants and thereby moderate the influence of each emotion at different stages. The final purpose was to examine the means for emotional arousal through the key online marketing channels for e-commerce.

The postmodernist consumption culture have created an environment where emotion based symbolic meanings are the key instruments of exchange. The emotional market-ing paradigm has recognised this shift and therefore focuses on managing the emotions based relationships between the consumers’ and the company. (Rytel 2010.) Additional-ly, the growing e-tail industry increases the need for practical understanding of online marketing communications (Oxford Economics 2011, 9).

Empirical findings in the past literature on emotions have revealed the importance of the emotion specific approach to emotions (e.g. Garg & Lerner 2013; Garg, Inman & Mittal 2005; Lerner & Keltner 2000). Valence (positive/negative) does not sufficiently predict the effect of certain emotions. By incorporating the social, emotional, and risk related aspects of fashion e-tail to the notions of contemporary consumption culture (Christensen et al. 157–159), as well as to the past literature of emotions, it was hypoth-esised that emotions play a particularly significant role in the fashion e-tail industry. In addition, subsequent literature on emotions demonstrated that emotion specific appraisal dimensions largely define the behavioural tendencies of emotions (e.g. Lerner & Kelt-ner 2000). By exploring the appraisal dimensions of discrete emotions, interest, con-tentment, and pride were identified to possess highly distinct appraisals and behavioural effects (see Griskevicius et al. 2010; Silvia 2008). Thus the potentially distinct out-comes of different positive emotions on behaviour were demonstrated by using the aforementioned emotions as examples. Linking the behavioural tendencies of interest, contentment, and pride to the CDP and taking into account the typical attributes of online fashion shopping (see e.g. Kawaf & Tagg 2012; Kim and Lennon 2010; Forsythe et al. 2006), a hypothesised framework, depicting the possible roles of these emotions in CDP was created. Finally, the particular opportunities of websites, e-mail, and social media for emotional marketing were noted, and practical means for arousing interest, contentment, and pride through these channels were suggested.

By combining theories of emotions with the challenges and opportunities of the con-temporary environment, the thesis provides perspective and ideas for today’s business-to-consumer marketers. The applied consumer decision process (Blackwell et al. 2006) is a universal model for assessing business-to-consumer buying behaviour, therefore;

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the suggested links between consumer behaviour and emotions can be widely used as an example for assessing the effect of discrete emotions on consumers’ actions. In addi-tion, the examples of how the underlying dimensions of discrete emotions can be em-ployed for the objectives of marketing may be beneficial for designing online marketing strategies. Finally, the provided examples of deploying certain online channels for emo-tional marketing operations may be helpful demonstration for marketers linking theory and practice.

The thesis revealed a need for extensive empirical research to better understand how the specific emotions guide human behaviour. Regarding specifically how emotions affect online fashion purchasing intentions, the following questions emerged: Does pride have a particularly significant influence on the purchasing intentions of public setting products perceived as luxurious (e.g. Hermès purse)? Must the perception of interest be pleasurable to drive sales? What are the implications of the receptiveness facet of contentment (see Fredrickson 1998, 306) for marketing communications? And finally, more insights for understanding how to elicit discrete emotions through online marketing channels are needed. Further understanding of these questions would help marketers to respond to the requirements of today’s consumption culture. On a more general level, a comparative empirical study of the significance of different emotions on human decision-making would be especially beneficial for understanding the emotions that largely direct human behaviour. Moreover, understanding the events, situations, and means that mostly arouse those emotions, would help to understand the most signif-icant (emotional) directors of human actions.

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7 SUMMARY

The thesis focussed on the role of discrete emotions in the consumer online shopping decisions. In particular, the influence of interest, pride, and contentment was examined through the CDP framework (Blackwell et al. 2006) in fashion e-commerce. Additional-ly, the means for arousing these emotions through online channels were explored. Thus the theories of emotions and human decisions were combined with CDP model and the utilisation of the online marketing instruments in this framework was discussed.

First, the purpose and the reasoning of the thesis were introduced. Background in-formation concerning the shift towards the consumption of emotion-based symbols was provided, as well as highlighted the lack of emotion-based research in retail advertising. Additionally the scope of the thesis was defined to address interest, contentment, and pride, in the context of fashion e-commerce. In Chapter 2, at first, emotions and other related terms were defined and the vital role of emotions in human decisions was ad-dressed. Second, a short review on existing literature of basic emotions was conducted. In addition, the emotional marketing paradigm and its close relationship with marketing communications was discussed. In Chapter 3, the context of fashion e-commerce was introduced and addressed from the perspective of emotional marketing. First, the con-cept of interactive marketing communications was rationalised as a functional instru-ment for online emotional marketing. Other related concepts, such as digital marketing communications (DMC), were considered and the interrelationships between different concepts were discussed. Then, the opportunities and challenges of interactive market-ing communications were addressed in the prevailing setting. Finally, the characteristics of fashion e-commerce were explored and the implications of those attributes for emo-tional marketing were discussed.

In the fourth chapter, the notions of previous chapters were combined and the roles of discrete emotions in the CDP framework were examined. A hypothesised model was developed to depict the possible roles of interest, contentment, and pride at the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of the CDP. The chapter was initiated by introducing the CDP model and addressing its’ implications for the emotional wants, and further, for the role of emotions during the process. After the introduction of the CDP, the chapter was rationalised and structured as follows: First, the cognitive-appraisal and functional theories of emotions were explored. Together, the theories state that discrete emotions have their own appraisal dimensions, which differentiate them from other emotions of the same valence, and that the appraisal tendencies of discrete emotions, arise from these emotion specific appraisal dimensions. These appraisal tendencies, in turn, have their own behavioural effects humans and therefore the influ-ence of discrete emotions on human behaviour can be anticipated. Finally, the emotions of interest, contentment, and pride were individually addressed, and by deriving from

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the functional aspects and appraisal dimensions of those emotions, their potential roles in the CDP of fashion products were discussed.

In chapter 5, the means for arousing interest, contentment, and pride, through the ma-jor interactive marketing channels were discussed. At first, social media, websites, and e-mail were identified as particularly useful channels for arousing consumer emotions. Second, by using the appraisal dimensions of each emotion as guidelines, practical ex-amples for arousing those emotions through the identified channels were provided. In the final chapter, it was compared how the content of the thesis corresponded to the ini-tial purposes set, as well as deduced the implications for marketers. Additionally, sug-gestions for further research were provided.

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