Ezgi AKPINAR, Assistant Professor of Marketing

Ezgi’s main area of expertise are word of mouth, viral marketing and consumer behavior.
She holds a PhD in Marketing (2013) from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. She has been a visiting PhD student at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania.
She received her Bachelors’ with honors in Economics and Business Administration from the Koç University.  She got her Master’s degree in Marketing from the Tilburg University, receiving full scholarship. Ezgi is working as an Assistant Professor of Marketing and the Head of Business Administration at MEF University since 2014. Ezgi has taught a variety of marketing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. These include Introduction to Marketing, Viral Marketing and Unconscious Processes in Consumer Behavior. She has received the McKinsey & Company Best Marketing PhD Dissertation award. She has presented and acted as session chair in leading conferences such as Association of Consumer Research, Society for Consumer Psychology, European Marketing Academy. Her work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research.

Abstract for academics day:

Keeping the Threat “Far from Home”:

The Role of Self-Construal on Sharing Product Harm Information

Product harm information spreading in the marketplace may have profound consequences for companies, public policy makers and consumer welfare in general. However, limited research is available on when and why consumers share such information with others. This paper examines how self-relevance and self-construal affect the sharing of product harm information and details the underlying processes that shape sharing. Five experiments demonstrate that under independent self-construal, highly self-relevant product harm information is less likely to be shared. On the other hand, the reluctance in sharing highly self-relevant information is attenuated under interdependent self-construal. These effects are explained by the differences in self-serving processes and motivations for product harm information due to self-construal. The authors’ framework sheds light on why consumers keep the threat “far from home” and how companies can use these findings to deal with product harm information spreading.

Abstract for practitioners day:

Valuable Virality

Given recent interest in social media, many brands now create content that they hope consumers will view and share with peers. While some campaigns indeed go “viral,” their value to the brand is limited if they do not boost brand evaluation or increase purchase. Consequently, a key question is how to create valuable virality, or content that is not only shared, but also benefits the brand. Share data from hundreds of real online ads, as well as controlled laboratory experiments, demonstrate that compared to informative appeals (which focus on product features), emotional appeals (which use drama, mood, music and other emotion-eliciting strategies) are more likely to be shared. Informative appeals, in contrast, boost brand evaluations and purchase because the brand is an integral part of the ad content. By combining the benefits of both approaches, emotional integral ads boost sharing while also bolstering brand-related outcomes. Our framework sheds light on how companies can generate valuable virality and the mechanisms underlying these effects.