Abstract

Technology has changed the relationship between consumers and companies. In particular, mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets) allow consumers to interact with companies through myriad touch points. Consumers can search for information about products and services online and then buy them offline and viceversa, jumping from one channel to another, resulting in a more complex customer journey. In particular, the mobile channel provides marketers with three major value additions (Shankar and Balasubramanian, 2009): they can reach their customers on an anytime, anywhere basis; they can establish intimate relationships with their customers; they can create location-sensitive marketing content. Despite the increasing interest of companies towards mobile marketing and its implications, the literature is still scant. In this paper we are going to analyze how consumers interact with companies by focusing in particular on the pre-purchase phase of the customer journey and on mobile shopper marketing via smartphone, a research area which deserves further attention by scholars and practitioners as well. After the theoretical background, we will provide preliminary results of a survey on a sample of millennials to shed light on how consumers respond to recent mobile marketing practices. Propositions and future research directions are provided.