EDITORIAL published: 11 January 2021 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.611114 Editorial: Toward Consumer 4.0 Insights and Opportunities Under the Marketing 4.0 Scenario María Pilar Martínez-Ruiz 1*, Mónica Gómez-Suárez 2 , Ana Isabel Jiménez-Zarco 3 and Alicia Izquierdo-Yusta 4 1 Department of Business Administration, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain, 2 Department of Finance and Marketing Research, Autónoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 3 Department of Economic and Business, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Departament of Economic and Business Administration, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain Keywords: marketing 4.0, consumer 4.0, technology, virtual, COVID Editorial on the Research Topic Toward Consumer 4.0 Insights and Opportunities under the Marketing 4.0 Scenario This Research Topic aims to shed light on the current academic and practical perspectives within the so-called “Consumer 4.0” paradigm. The related perspective on Marketing 4.0 represents new opportunities and concerns for Social Science. Thus, there is a need to find a balance between theoretical frameworks, opinions, and empirical applications, and thereby stimulate dialogues among researchers and professionals. In short, this collection of papers encapsulates the literature on how technological evolution is impacting different actors (companies, consumers, patients, and tourists, etc.) and interacting in various sectors. We also propose research lines based on the combination of two key factors: the advancement of technologies and the impact of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. This collection builds upon a previous Research Topic, “From consumer experience to affective Edited and reviewed by: Darren C. Treadway, loyalty: challenges and prospects in the psychology of consumer behavior 3.0,” which influenced Daemen College, United States subsequent research on the opportunities and challenges inherent to Marketing 4.0. The primary *Correspondence: objective of the current Research Topic is to analyze how virtual transformation affects the behavior María Pilar Martínez-Ruiz of very different organizations, industries, and consumers. mariapilar.martinez@uclm.es This Research Topic collection includes 15 research articles spanning diverse publication formats, including 8 Original Research Articles, 4 Opinion Reviews, and 3 Mini-reviews. Specialty section: Although different, the papers have common threads, examining the impact of Information This article was submitted to and Communication Technology (ICT) on market demand and business strategy. They are also Organizational Psychology, connected either through the functional scope within the organization or the focal sector in which a section of the journal they are applied. Frontiers in Psychology Blazquez-Resino et al. highlight how for companies to be competitive, it is important to Received: 28 September 2020 establish synergy between Industry 4.0 and Marketing 4.0. Muñoz et al. discuss how investments Accepted: 08 December 2020 in technology influence the orientation toward entrepreneurship in SMEs, showing how digital Published: 11 January 2021 transformation has allowed direct and rapid access to information about consumers in an atomized Citation: market, in this case, wine. In an examination of the financial field, Callejas-Albiñana et al. Martínez-Ruiz MP, Gómez-Suárez M, conducted a panel data study among a selected sample of countries to determine the influence Jiménez-Zarco AI and Izquierdo-Yusta A (2021) Editorial: of different exogenous factors, aiming to explain stagnation in recent years and outline proposals Toward Consumer 4.0 Insights and for new government intervention strategies. Opportunities Under the Marketing 4.0 In Marketing 4.0, which reflects the impact of the technological revolution on the marketing Scenario. Front. Psychol. 11:611114. arena (Jiménez-Zarco et al., 2019), companies face high volumes of information (Big Data) (Lies, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.611114 2019) that can be analyzed through data mining techniques (Data Mining) (Sener et al., 2019). Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 January 2021 | Volume 11 | Article 611114 Martínez-Ruiz et al. Editorial: Marketing 4.0: Insights and Opportunities Studies on “Big Data” illustrate the importance of capturing loyalty. Huete-Alcocer et al. discuss how building an image of and analyzing huge amounts of information and Rubio et al. a holiday destination is a critical factor in the perceptions and underscore the importance of virtual communities on the evaluations of that destination by tourists. This study accounts co-creation process. Díaz-Martín et al. analyzed the concept for not only cognitive and affective components but also the of health e-mavens, showing the importance of conducting unique image component. Moreover, they demonstrate that investigations with data mining and user-generated content. eWOM is a powerful means of promoting cultural tourism. Through an in-depth review of financial literature, Díaz and Focusing on shopping tourism, Muro-Rodríguez et al. highlight Esparcia analyzed investors’ risk aversion in terms of different its importance for cities, identifying differentiation strategies for environments, financial products, and temporality, etc. The cities as shopping destinations and setting out recommendations authors utilized Big Data on financial products to uncover new based on the analysis of key factors for listing a city as a research lines for risk reduction. shopping destination. Virtual developments also allow scholars to better measure the impact of business strategies on an individual’s behavior, namely by monitoring activities in cyberspace, which include FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS search engine queries, social network relationships, and website purchases. In this regard, Wang et al. used behavioral and Since the start of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in early 2020, ERP (event-related potentials) measures to explore the priming consumers and companies have faced a new environmental effects of monetary and social rewards on e-commerce consumer variable that has accelerated the process of digitization and the decisions in China. In their analysis of individual behavior in incorporation of new technologies. This exogenous phenomenon relation to specific advertising strategies, García-Madariaga et al. will produce changes in the global economy, organizational reveal the importance of using neurophysiological measures to management, and consumer habits. Some will be transitory, analyze the appropriate use of visual metaphors, as well as how to while others will be permanent. Future papers (and topics) maximize impact and ensure that advertising is effective. therefore need to investigate how the pandemic will interact The extensive use and adoption of technology has not with Marketing 4.0 and influence the competitive strategies that only impacted organizations, it has given rise to a new type allow organizations to obtain competitive advantages and offer of consumer: Consumer 4.0. In an omni-channel context, adapted products and services to meet these new demands. combining digital and physical media, this type of customer Notably, disruptive or emerging technologies that companies maintains positive and lasting relationships with multiple firms were previously using as a test have been incorporated in a masive and other actors. However, the characteristics of digital media scale into infrastructures in many countries during the pandemic. are particularly impactful on these individual’s brand decisions For example, traditionally, neuroscientific techniques have as they complete their brand journey. In this vein, Martinez-Ruiz been used to measure consumer reactions to advertising-related and Moser analyzed the evolution of the worldwide web and its stimuli or to assess the effectiveness of discount coupons or gifts. impact on consumer behavior. Easy-to-use neuro-marketing tools are now being implemented As the online environment has evolved, scholars have to measure the emotions and experiences of consumers from emphasized the importance of the psychological aspects neurophysiological data relating to a wide range of companies of consumer behaviour—namely, individual preferences, from different sectors (including retail, health, and tourism, etc.) emotions, and sensory experiences. For instance, Bettiga and and/or diverse purchasing contexts (such as online, offline, and Lamberti shed light on the still vague concepts of anticipated omnichannel, etc.). and anticipatory happiness. Their results demonstrate the Scholars with access to longitudinal data (pre- and post- importance of designing visual product communication COVID-19), should measure buyer behavior in terms of the in a way that elicits positive feelings of anticipated and variables that influence them before, during, and after the anticipatory emotions in the viewer. Building upon gratifications decision-making process. theory, Rodriguez-Ardura and Messeguer-Artola developed an These variables include the impact of perceived risk, which integrative and context-specific model that links engagement leads consumers to conduct a more systematic and prolonged with enjoyment, self-presentation, and community belonging, process of searching for information, mainly on social networks which were all identified as motivational factors among or web pages (Hansen et al., 2018). The relationship between its Facebook users. Meanwhile, Reinares-Lara et al. measured the different components (physical, functional, economic, social, and experience of people through two dimensions of satisfaction: psychological) may also change based on the product category cognitive (the most studied so far in academic research) and (Emilien et al., 2017). However, the economic crisis inflicted by affective (the least analyzed), derived from the analysis of the pandemic may produce the opposite effect. Even though the neurophysiological data. perceived risk is high, certain middle-class segments that were According to the previously mentioned category, the tourism previously financially healthy might be struggling with their basic industry provides useful case studies for understanding the food shopping. huge impact of technology. Blazquez-Resino et al. show how The next variable relates to consumer preferences for different ICTs are important for understanding the development of attributes/values and whether they have remained stable or loyalty, making an important distinction between passive changed. In the mass consumer sector, and particularly in food attitudinal loyalty, active attitudinal loyalty, and behavioral or personal hygiene, it is worth studying whether consumers Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 January 2021 | Volume 11 | Article 611114 Martínez-Ruiz et al. Editorial: Marketing 4.0: Insights and Opportunities are more likely to use safety as a criterion for choosing a FUNDING product or not. Following on from this, in the future, scholars should explore technological ways of tracking or tracing health This research was conducted under the framework of or food products. different research projects and groups: Observatorio de la Innovación en la Distribución Comercial (University AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS of Castilla-La Mancha); TECHNOCONS Consumer Behavior and Technology. (Autónoma University of All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual Madrid); and the I2TIC Research Group (Open University contribution to the work, and approved it for publication. of Catalonia). REFERENCES Sener, A., Barut, M., Oztekin, A., Avcilar, M. Y., and Yildirim, M. B. (2019). The role of information usage in a retail supply chain: a causal data mining and analytical Emilien, G., Weitkunat, R., and Lüdicke, F. (2017). Consumer Perception of Product modeling approach. J. Bus. Res. 99, 87–104. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.01.070 Risks and Benefits. New York: Springer International Publishing. Hansen, J. M., Saridakis, G., and Benson, V. (2018). Risk, trust, and the interaction Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the of perceived ease of use and behavioral control in predicting consumers’ use of absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a social media for transactions. Comput. Hum. Beh. 80, 197–206. potential conflict of interest. Jiménez-Zarco, A. I., Rospigliosi, A., Martínez-Ruiz, M. P., and Izquierdo- Yusta, A. (2019). “Marketing 4.0: Enhancing consumer-brand engagement Copyright © 2021 Martínez-Ruiz, Gómez-Suárez, Jiménez-Zarco and Izquierdo- through big data analysis,” in Web Services: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Yusta. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Applications, ed. Information Resources Management Association (Hershey, Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in PA: IGI Global), 2172–2195. other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) Lies, J. (2019). Marketing intelligence and big data: digital marketing techniques are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance on their way to becoming social engineering techniques in marketing. Int. J. with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted Interact. Multimed. Artif. Intell. 5, 134–144. doi: 10.9781/ijimai.2019.05.002 which does not comply with these terms. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 January 2021 | Volume 11 | Article 611114