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Friends with benefits: social coupons as a strategy to enhance customers’ social empowerment

Author

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  • Sara Hanson

    (University of Richmond)

  • Hong Yuan

    (University of Oregon)

Abstract

Businesses often seek to leverage customers’ social networks to acquire new customers and stimulate word-of-mouth recommendations. While customers make brand recommendations for various reasons (e.g., incentives, reputation enhancement), they are also motivated by a desire for social empowerment—to feel an impact on others. In several multi-method studies, we show that facilitating sharing of social coupons (i.e., coupon sets that include one for self-use and one to be shared) is a unique marketing strategy that facilitates social empowerment. Firms benefit from social coupons because customers who share spend more and report greater purchase intentions than those who do not. Furthermore, we demonstrate that social coupons are most effective when the sharer’s brand relationship is new versus established. For customers with an established relationship, sharing with a receiver who also has an established relationship maximizes potential impact. Together, these studies connect social empowerment to relationship marketing and provide guidance to managers targeting social coupons.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Hanson & Hong Yuan, 2018. "Friends with benefits: social coupons as a strategy to enhance customers’ social empowerment," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 768-787, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:joamsc:v:46:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11747-017-0534-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11747-017-0534-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Cheah, Jun-Hwa & Lim, Xin-Jean & Ting, Hiram & Liu, Yide & Quach, Sara, 2022. "Are privacy concerns still relevant? Revisiting consumer behaviour in omnichannel retailing," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Tim Hilken & Debbie I. Keeling & Ko Ruyter & Dominik Mahr & Mathew Chylinski, 2020. "Seeing eye to eye: social augmented reality and shared decision making in the marketplace," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 143-164, March.
    4. Swapan Deep Arora, 2024. "Consumer proactive empowerment: A systematic review and taxonomy development," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 14(1), pages 104-121, June.
    5. Shrihari Sridhar & Eric Fang, 2019. "New vistas for marketing strategy: digital, data-rich, and developing market (D3) environments," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 977-985, November.
    6. Rodrigo Belo & Ting Li, 2022. "Social Referral Programs for Freemium Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 8933-8962, December.
    7. Virginie Schweitzer & Françoise Simon, 2021. "Self-construals as the locus of paradoxical consumer empowerment in self-service retail technology environments," Post-Print hal-03110766, HAL.
    8. Ram, Pappu Kalyan & Pandey, Neeraj & Persis, Jinil, 2024. "Modeling social coupon redemption decisions of consumers in food industry: A machine learning perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).

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