Marketing Research Presentations

Dr. Andrew Cudmore, assistant professor of marketing, had two papers presented at the European Advances in Consumer Research conference in Dublin, Ireland.
His co-author, Dr. Karen L. Becker-Olsen of New York University, made the presentations. The first paper is entitled “Consumer Response to Corporate Social
Initiatives: A look at the Effects of Fit and Motivation.” According to Dr. Cudmore, the “use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to
influence customers and differentiate products has become quite common. This research builds on the growing body of literatures on CSR and investigates the
role that fit and perceived motivation play in determining consumer response to social initiatives. We find that initiatives, which are perceived as low
fit consistently decrease consumer responses, while self interested corporate motivation also leads to lower consumer response.” The second paper is
entitled “When Nice Guys Finish First: The Role of Celebrity Endorser Character and Fit on Brand Evaluations.” Dr. Cudmore asks, “If it is true that nice
guys finish last, what about products that are endorsed by the nice guys? In a content analysis, it was found that roughly two-thirds of the ads, which
featured celebrities, had no link between the product and celebrity. In a 2 (positive moral character/negative moral character) x 3 (high fit, low fit and
created fit), the brand benefited. However, when the celebrity had negative character associations, the brand suffered unless the fit was perceived as
high.” Dr. Scott D. Swain of Boston University was also co-author of the second paper. Dr. Cudmore teaches marketing principles and marketing management.
His research interests are service recovery and complaint handling; brand equity and image; perceived quality; store brands; health care marketing; and
market orientation and firm information processing.