Can Social Media Campaigns Backfire? Exploring Consumers' Attitudes and Word-of-Mouth Toward Four Social Media Campaigns and Its Implications on Consumer-Campaign Identification

In response to the unprecedented growth of social media, companies are continuously creating unique social media campaigns encouraging customers to share their advertising messages. However, many of these social campaigns end up backfiring. The purpose of this study is to examine consumers' preferences toward 4 social media campaigns and to investigate the impact of positive and negative word-of-mouth and social value on consumer-campaign identification. Using a sample of 525 respondents in Australia, the results show social media campaigns that contain negative messages are more likely to receive negative word-of-mouth while partnering with non-profit organizations may help generate positive word-of-mouth. This study will assist marketing managers to better understand the consumers' perceptions on recent social media campaigns in Australia.     

Political Campaign Advertising: Believe It or Not

SUMMARY

The extent that political advertising in elections is believed by voters' is an important issue for public policy, political marketing, and marketing in general. Much effort and funding is devoted to communicating with voters' during elections via advertising. This study examined political advertising believability and three potential antecedents of believability during an election. The data were gathered via a random sample of voters immediately following an election and the results indicate that believability is influenced by a voters' involvement, perceived control and satisfaction and that party preference plays a key role in believability of competing campaigns.     

Encouraged,motivated and learning oriented for working creatively and successfully: a case of Korean workers in marketing communications

This study investigated and assessed organizational and motivational determinants in creative and successful marketing communications campaigns by analysing a sample of Korean workers. The study revealed the relative importance of organizational and motivational factors for campaign creativity and performance in marketing communications in Korean workplaces. The findings provide evidence that managerial encouragement is essential to Korean workers' intrinsic motivation for planning, learning orientation and creativity. The intrinsic motivation for planning in turn generally had a strong effect on their creativity, learning orientation and performance. Related implications are discussed for managers in marketing communications, where creativity may fall into the realm of the required aspects of the workers. From the findings it is implied that deliberately designed organizational means for enhancing creativity must be sought.     

Cause-Related Marketing: An Exploratory Study of Campaign Donation Structures Issues

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, cause-related marketing (CRM) has become a popular and unique promotional tool for brands. Academic research indicates outcomes of such campaigns are generally positive for all stakeholders. Consumers feel they are making a difference, firms benefit from improved public image and increased sales, and the cause or nonprofit organization receives increased publicity and funding. However, there are ethical issues involved when linking a firm with a nonprofit organization as well as potential negatives (Smith and Stodghill 1994; Andreasan 1996; Meyer 1999; Polonsky and Wood 2001). An exploratory research study was undertaken to understand the impact of the structural elements of cause-related marketing campaigns, including how the donation is quantified, the size of the donation relative to the price of the product, the presence of donation deadlines and caps, and the level of promotion used to publicize the campaign. Findings suggest that the structural elements of cause-related marketing campaigns do influence consumers' perceptions of the campaigns. Based on these results, implications for CRM campaign managers and future research ideas are provided. This information will help practitioners, including marketing managers, advertising managers and advertising creative professionals to design the most effective communication tactics for a cause-related marketing campaign.     

Consumer Decision-making Processes in Mobile Viral Marketing Campaigns

The high penetration of cell phones in today's global environment offers a wide range of promising mobile marketing activities, including mobile viral marketing campaigns. However, the success of these campaigns, which remains unexplored, depends on the consumers' willingness to actively forward the advertisements that they receive to acquaintances, e.g., to make mobile referrals. Therefore, it is important to identify and understand the factors that influence consumer referral behavior via mobile devices. The authors analyze a three-stage model of consumer referral behavior via mobile devices in a field study of a firm-created mobile viral marketing campaign. The findings suggest that consumers who place high importance on the purposive value and entertainment value of a message are likely to enter the interest and referral stages. Accounting for consumers' egocentric social networks, we find that tie strength has a negative influence on the reading and decision to refer stages and that degree centrality has no influence on the decision-making process.     

A multi-stage model of word-of-mouth influence through viral marketing

With the growth and evolution of the Internet, electronic peer-to-peer referrals have become an important phenomenon, and marketers have tried to exploit their potential through viral marketing campaigns. At the same time, spam and e-mail-based viruses have cluttered electronic communications, making viral marketing campaigns problematic and challenging to deploy. The key driver in viral marketing is the effectiveness of unsolicited, electronic referrals to create awareness, trigger interest, and generate sales or product adoption. Yet, despite a large literature concerning interpersonal influence, little is known about how this electronic, or, indeed, any word-of-mouth process influences consumers' actual behaviors, particularly in a cluttered online environment. In this paper, we develop a model to help identify the role word-of-mouth plays during each stage of a viral marketing recipients' decision-making process, including the conditions that moderate such influence. We then present an innovative methodology for collecting data unobtrusively and in real time. We empirically test the model and methodology via a field study, where we observed the reactions of 1100 individuals after they received an unsolicited e-mail from one of their acquaintances, inviting them to take a survey and in turn spread the word about it. We found that characteristics of the social tie influenced recipients' behaviors, but had different effects at different stages: tie strength facilitated awareness, perceptual affinity triggered recipients' interest, and demographic similarity had a negative influence on each stage of the decision-making process. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and methodological contributions of our work and of managerial implications of these findings for online marketers interested in strategies for leveraging peer-to-peer referral networks.     

(Mis)trust in marketing: a reflection on consumers' attitudes and perceptions

Consumers are at the focal point of marketers' attention. However, while extensive research is devoted to understanding consumers' motivations, attitudes and behaviour, surprisingly little attention is given to the consumers' views of marketing itself. This paper explores consumers' attitudes towards marketing and their perceptions of it, reflecting critically upon their views. Since much criticism of marketing focuses on its role in promoting consumption, we also consider perceptions of current levels of consumption and the extent to which marketing is held responsible for them. Based on 29 in-depth interviews we find evidence suggesting the prevalence of negative attitudes towards marketing, especially associated with deceptive or dishonest campaigns, although marketing's informative role is acknowledged. Importantly, findings reveal a limited understanding of the discipline, suggesting a gap between the concept of marketing and consumers' perceptions of it. This paper sends marketers important messages from consumers and offers grounds for further debate.     

Getting permission: Exploring factors affecting permission marketing

Permission marketing suggests an evolution of direct marketing, particularly used with e-mail. It combines databases of customers who agree to receive marketing messages with low-cost, customized e-mails that attempt to slice through advertising clutter, attract increased customer support, and change behavior.This applied research examined implementing permission marketing, relevant literature, and permission marketing's effectiveness influencing consumer interest and behavior. A case study tested the propositions resulting from the literature review and evaluated responses to a permission marketing campaign that used traditional and new media. This study found that relevance—personalization, brand equity, and previous relationships—influenced response rates. This article adds to the growing body of research on permission marketing's role in marketing theory, as well as its applied effectiveness in the marketplace.     

The Internet in Social Marketing Research

SUMMARY

Social marketing campaigns are usually aimed at problems that exact a large toll in the community. Any campaign must be properly researched during the development process and afterward, to assess its impact. The target market for social marketing campaigns often includes younger members of the community. The research methodology used when developing or assessing these campaigns must therefore be appropriate to adolescents.

This article discusses the application of Internet technology to research among adolescents using experience gained while testing potential anti-smoking messages among a sample of UK school students to illustrate the issues.

Internet-based research has the potential to generate data that is comparable to that generated by conventional research methods and with improved efficiency in terms of timescale, cost, quality, and quantity of responses.     

Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories.     

Shaping safe drinking cultures: evoking positive emotion to promote moderate‐drinking behaviour

Social marketing by Western governments that use fear tactics and threatening information to promote anti‐drinking messages has polarized ‘binge drinking’ and ‘moderate drinking’ through a continuum that implies benefits and harms for both individuals and society. With the goal of extending insights into social marketing approaches that promote safer drinking cultures in Australia, we discuss findings from a study that examines alcohol consumers' moderate‐drinking intentions. By applying the theory of planned behaviour and emotions theory, we discuss survey results from a sample of alcohol consumers, which demonstrate that positively framed value propositions that evoke happiness and love are more influential in the processing of an alcohol moderation message for alcohol consumers. The key limitations of this study are the cross‐sectional nature of the data and the focal‐dependent variable being behavioural intentions rather than behaviours. Research insight into the stronger influence of positive emotions on processing an alcohol moderation message establishes an important avenue for future social marketing communications that moves beyond negative, avoidance appeals to promote behaviour change in drinkers. These research findings will benefit professionals involved in developing social change campaigns that promote and reinforce consumers' positive intentions, with messages about the benefits of controlled, moderate drinking.     

Effects of perspective taking and entitlement on consumers

Perspective taking involves mentally putting yourself in another's shoes and has been shown to offer interpersonal benefits, however, despite its use in campaigns targeting adolescents, it has been relatively neglected in marketing. This paper examines the moderating effect of entitlement in young adolescent consumers, focusing on perspective taking encouraging a prosocial behavior. This research extends existing marketing literature which to date has examined perspective taking in relation to adult behavior (Davis et al., 2004; Galinsky et al., 2008; Dietvorst et al., 2009), contributing to the study and understanding of adolescent consumers' consumer behavior.     

Targeting direct marketing campaigns by neural networks

Abstract

Market-oriented companies increasingly aim at maximising the return of targeted direct marketing campaigns, rather than trying to reach customers and prospects indistinctly, according to a mass marketing approach. The profitability of direct marketing campaigns depends on a detailed definition of prospects and an accurate prediction of the response rate. This study shows how the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can improve the effectiveness of direct mail marketing campaigns thanks to a better prediction of the response rate for subjects included in the target population according to factors that are believed to have an impact on their purchase intention. Results show the effectiveness of ANNs – in comparison with multiple regression analysis and logistic regression analysis – in identifying complex relationships among the data, and particularly in profiling customers and prospects and anticipating their behaviour.     

Spam and Beyond: An Information-Economic Analysis of Unwanted Commercial Messages

The phenomenon of unwanted commercial messages (UCM), including e-mail spam and emerging forms that target other Internet communications facilities, is analyzed from an information-economics perspective. UCM traffic pays off for its senders when it is noticed and consumed by Internet users; the industry is, therefore, dependent on a common-pool resource that is accessed through an information asset. An analytical model of the industry is derived and solved computationally, and two dimensions of information quality held by the senders of UCM traffic are manipulated in the model. It is shown that such manipulations can moderate over time both the number of UCM campaigns undertaken and the amount of Internet bandwidth consumed by UCM. Manipulations of the information-quality dimensions affected by e-mail filtering reduce the amount of traffic that penetrates an Internet user's attention space but increase the amount of Internet bandwidth consumed. This is consistent with data reported by e-mail security providers as filters have been deployed. It is also shown that both public and private entities have adopted policies and practices with unintentional informational side effects. These effects may have led to more rather than less, spam e-mail traffic. It is concluded that the lessons learned from the case of e-mail spam can be applied to the development of policies and practices for mitigating newer, emerging forms of UCM, including versions targeting instant-messaging systems and Web logs.     

User engagement for mobile payment service providers – introducing the social media engagement model

Twitter is being used by mobile wallet firms for customer acquisition, relationship management, marketing and promotional purposes. This study examines service advertisement and promotional tweets by mobile wallet firm's on Twitter. For this study, timeline data of top four mobile wallet firms of India, Paytm, MobiKwik, Freecharge and Oxigen Wallet were extracted from their Twitter screen (firm generated tweets). The user generated tweets were also extracted, using the search terms as firm's name. This study proposes a Social Media Engagement model for understanding user dynamics. The study provides three interesting inputs for promotional marketing tweets, firstly, firm should post mix of the tweets with respect to content type (i.e. informational, entertainment, remuneration and social). Secondly, a periodic campaigning is needed by the firms; and lastly, firms should focus on increasing their network size. The implications of these findings can help firm's managers and marketers in planning effective social media marketing campaigns.     

The fallacy of the heavy buyer: Exploring purchasing frequencies of fresh fruit and vegetable categories

‘Avocado lover,’ ‘banana lover,’ or ‘berry lover’ – these words are starting to dominate the contemporary marketing campaigns for fresh fruit and vegetable categories. Such campaigns assume that there are sizable buyer segments who purchase a particular fresh category more frequently, who are contributing a larger portion of sales, and who will continue to do so into the future. Yet, an established body of empirical evidence from consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories suggests that these assumptions could be false. The current study empirically examines fresh category purchasing behavior (through a large Nielsen US panel data) by applying three known models: the Negative Binomial Distribution, the Pareto share, and the stability over time analysis (buyers and sales contribution). This study compares the results and finds that despite many differences between fresh and CPG categories, buyers' purchasing behavior follows the same established benchmarks patterns as those observed in CPG contexts. There are many more infrequent or light buyers than heavy ‘lovers’; the heavy buyers contribute roughly 60% of sales; they are purchasing less frequently, and contributing fewer sales as time goes by. These findings carry important implications for marketers, retailers, and farmers of fresh categories. Specifically, the results show which marketing campaigns (i.e., those highly targeted at ‘lovers’ or those with a mass marketing appeal) are better grounded in the empirical evidence about buyer behavior which has the highest probability of increasing consumption.     

Charitable Giving: Towards a Model of Donor Behaviour

The need for the development of a comprehensive model of giving behaviour has never been greater. In the UK, the proportion of households electing to support charity is continuing a twenty year decline. This factor, combined with the accompanying and sharp increase in the number of registered charities has contributed to the creation of an ever more hostile fundraising environment. If they are to survive, charities seeking funds from individual donors will have to refine both the quality and targeting of their fundraising campaigns. It is the purpose of this article to develop a comprehensive model of giving behaviour to assist them in this process. The article draws on literature from the fields of marketing, economics, clinical psychology, social psychology, anthropology and sociology. The implications of the resultant model for fundraising strategy are discussed and opportunities for further research delineated.     

Can a print publication be equally effective online? Testing the effect of medium type on marketing communications

Faced with budgetary pressures, many marketing communication managers are canceling the print distribution of their flagship magazine in favor of an online version. However, if the online publication is less effective in achieving the organization's goals, this move may be ill advised. In a field experiment, subscribers of a promotional magazine received either a print version of the magazine or an e-mail invitation that linked to the online version. The print version had a higher open rate than did the online version. In addition, print readers had higher recall memory and engaged in more browsing. Ironically, although younger readers indicated a preference for receiving an online version, the effect of medium on memory performance was strongest among the younger readers. Therefore, ceasing a print publication in favor of an online-only publication might hurt the effectiveness of an organization's marketing communications, and managers should not make the decision based on cost alone.     

Factors Affecting E-Mail Marketing Sourcing Decisions: A Transaction Cost Perspective

Electronic marketing strategy is an important priority for e-business, but limited research has been undertaken to understand and predict decisions regarding the insourcing or outsourcing of these marketing activities. This study focuses specifically on e-mail marketing and uses an established seven function classification of the activities which include: designing, building, testing, deploying, tracking, reporting, and analyzing. Transaction cost theory was employed as a predictor of insourcing and outsourcing decisions for each of these e-mail marketing activities. To test these functions, case studies were used for tracking the value of two attributes of transactions–asset specificity and uncertainty (behavioural uncertainty, environmental volatility, and environmental diversity)–under three levels of analysis. Results show that specific skills and tacit knowledge used to manage functions are major factors for sourcing decisions, and overpower the effect of uncertainty. It was also found that companies consider an outsourcing option for each individual function rather than the combined or whole e-mail marketing functions. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations, implications for academics and practitioners, and future research directions.