In a nutshell, digital marketing is marketing that utilizes digital technology. Digital marketing began about 30 years ago and has spread throughout society with the increased use of smartphones and new digital technologies, to the point where all marketing is now related to digital marketing. In response to these developments, there has been a great deal of research on digital marketing. The framework for understanding this research is based on digital technology and is organized into elements related to the digital environment, market research, marketing actions, marketing outcomes, and marketing strategy. This special issue includes five recent studies that focus on different areas of expertise in this research framework, but are all closely related to each other. Therefore, the results of these diverse studies assist with understanding of many different issues and will help both researchers and practitioners to broaden their horizons, beyond the marketing field. Furthermore, the rate of change of digital technology is causing many companies to use this technology in practice without full verification, and interactions between practitioners and researchers are needed to deepen knowledge in this area. Findings from the academy can promote these deeper interactions.

Due to the emergence of the online C2C (consumer-to-consumer) marketplace, the new consumer behavior of temporary ownership is gaining popularity. Temporary ownership is defined as consumer behavior of selling products that they own temporarily, which were purchased for self-use. In this paper, the author envisions, explicates, and delineates temporary ownership behavior. Then, the paper highlights the similarities and differences with concepts such as liquid consumption, access-based consumption, collaborative consumption, and sharing economy. Finally, the paper debates the future research directions regarding temporary ownership relating to consumer decision making and psychological ownership, and discusses the managerial implications.

This paper discusses the interactive evolution of marketing functions between platforms (PFs) and individual business operators. The purpose is to present a new model and hypotheses that differ from the “PF-centered view of the relationship between a PF and its complements,” upon which existing interaction-type platform studies basically rely. For this purpose, the paper conducts a case study of interactive development of customer-interaction functions between PFs and individual business operators in the restaurant chain industry. As a result of the case study, we argue the following propositions: marketing functions of interaction-type PFs and individual business operators develop through interactive competition for functional expansion; and individual business operators may collaboratively develop PF functions to take advantage of the network effects of the PF.

Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple (GAFA) have expanded their platform businesses worldwide. However, alternatives to GAFA may be important for local areas and niche markets. This study was performed in cooperation with a local community platform “HamaZo”. Certain implications emerged from text mining of local resources. Based on these results, an affective search service was planned and developed from Marketing 3.0. Next, a trial market launch of this affective search service was evaluated by A/B test and interview. A series of activities showed the possibility of emergence of alternative intellectual information services that differ from personalization.

Deconstruction of distribution functions is progressing due to digital transformation. In response, various distribution business models are being developed by retailers. Based on these business models, consumers are provided with mobile apps that combine various retail functions. A focus on the comprehensiveness of the product categories offered to consumers and the integration of retail functions offered enables competitive typology of various mobile apps. For targeting of the mass market, there are leader-type mobile apps that maintain a high degree of comprehensiveness of product categories and highly integrated functions. Conversely, when targeting individual markets, market-specific mobile apps and function-specific mobile apps are found at the opposite ends of these axes. In this paper, we investigated the actual usage of mobile apps and the perceptions of these apps for smart shopping and shopping enjoyment, while keeping in mind the competitive typology of various mobile apps that reflect each distribution business model.

The diversification of devices used by consumers has drawn attention to the influence of devices on consumer behavior. This study examines the impact of device types, such as smartphones and personal computers, on consumers’ construal levels and the congruence between the device types and construal levels on consumer behavior. For this purpose, we conducted four studies: three online experiments and one field study. Study 1 showed that consumers perceive the target closer when they view it on a smartphone (vs. a PC). In Study 2, we found that consumers’ construal level becomes lower when using a smartphone (vs. a PC). In Study 3, we confirmed that the use of smartphones (vs. PCs) positively influences the evaluation of advertisements corresponding to lower construal levels. Finally, in Study 4, we examined the applicability of the findings from Studies 1 to 3 to the field of business by analyzing actual purchase data.

Among sales promotion tools, both certain and uncertain incentives are frequently used by firms. On the one hand, certain incentives refer to incentives for which consumers can always get rewards. By contrast, uncertain incentives refer to incentives for which consumers can get rewards by lottery. Most studies on incentives have focused on risk-aversion among consumers and have claimed that consumers prefer certain incentives over uncertain ones, because the latter are associated with the risk of not always getting the desired rewards. However, in recent years, an increasing number of studies have shown more positive tendencies towards uncertain incentives. In view of the growing practical and academic interests in incentives, it is helpful to review the research findings on incentives to date, and to clarify the remaining problems. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of studies that show positive tendencies towards certain and uncertain incentives, pointing out that future studies are necessary to develop a new research stream.

This study identifies recent trends in research on color by reviewing the literature since 2015. A review was conducted on four major categories of color research: hue, lightness, chroma, and monochrome vs. color. An examination of the relationship between color and marketing mix (4P’s) revealed that, while hue has been studied for every component of the marketing mix, brightness literature is limited to the product component of the marketing mix and chroma literature is limited to product and place. An analysis focusing on multisensory cross-modal effects showed that there are studies on color related to taste, auditory effects, and haptics, but a lack of research investigating the relationship between color and olfactory effects. In summary, this study identifies gaps in the existing literature on color and marketing mix and on color and multisensory cross-modal effects.

This paper is a case study of how the popular picture book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, which has an outstanding track record of a cumulative circulation of 8 million copies, has expanded its market as a brand, with examination of the factors associated with the brand growth. The translated picture book was first published in Japan in 1976. However, the brand business began much later, in 2005, when licensing agent Cosmo Merchandising signed an agent contract with an American company to represent them in Japan. Today it has grown into a successful brand through which about 80 licensees provide a variety of products and services to the market. The factors that led to expansion of the brand market included focus and consideration of the marketing strategies used by Cosmo Merchandising as a licensing agent under the policy of the licensor.