دانلود رایگان مقاله دلیل ارزش اسرار بازاریابی مصرف کنندگان

Abstract

Everyone keeps secrets, and organizations are no exception. The current literature on secrecy in organizations is centered on the managerial perspective of secrets as competitive resources. In contrast, this conceptual article takes a consumer-centric approach and presents a detailed explanation of why and how marketing secrets create value for consumers. First, a discussion of agency highlights three consumer roles in the marketing of secrets: Insiders, who know the secret; Aspirants, who know of the secret; and Outsiders, who do not know of the secret. Second, based on two mechanisms of awareness and primacy, a value chain of secrecy is proposed that presents four types of value that consumers can extract from secrets: acquisition value, acknowledgment value, leverage value, and dissemination value. Lastly, secrecy is revisited as a strategic marketing tool for creating value for consumers.

4. Conclusions

To expand and enrich the existing understanding of secrecy, which heretofore has largely taken a firmcentric orientation, this consideration of the multiple types of consumer secrecy value has adopted a consumer-centric perspective of the value of secrets. Secrecy is valuable to firms from a competitive perspective, and trade secrets are highly prized and guarded assets. But secrecy is also valuable to firms when considered a means of creating value for consumers. This article attempts to enhance the managerial understanding of secrecy by first proposing a typology of consumer agency in consumer secrecy and then subsequently unpacking four types of customer value that can be realized through the use of secrecy. Organizations that want to create value for consumers would be well served by paying close attention to the strategic use of secrecy and the controlled and selective release of information. To accomplish this, firms must manage the tradeoff between disclosure and maintaining their secrets (Arrow, 1962; James et al., 2013). This process, called the paradox of disclosure (Arrow, 1962), highlights the complexity of balancing the disclosure of certain details while maintaining the secrecy of others. From the secret recipes of Coca-Cola and KFC to the next plotline in the Harry Potter book series orthe specifics ofthe upcoming Apple product launch, many firms take the role of Insider and use acknowledgment value and leverage value to incite customer interest by virtue of the mysteries of their offerings. Some firms use the strategic release of marketing secrets to select customers to further compound their marketing value by creating consumer acquisition value for chosen target groups, as in Ticketmaster’s presale events or Kraft Foods’ Caramilk Secret contest. Some firms strategically leverage the value of exclusive dissemination by enabling invitation-only memberships and access. Managers are advised to note that, importantly, marketing secrets have value to consumers in and of themselves. The marketing of secrets is not exclusively a managerial function. Consumers use and value marketing secrets for their own reasons and of their own accord. Astute managers will identify, recognize, and then leverage these reasons for strategic benefit.