Maximising performance gains from cooperative marketing: understanding the role of environmental contexts

Understanding the situational relevance of strategy is vital given that strategies have varying utilities under different environmental settings which result in performance variations. Research remains silent regarding the situational relevance of cooperative marketing strategy implementation whereby performance outcomes are maximised. Through quantitative survey results, we explore the relationship between cooperative marketing and performance outcomes across varying environmental contexts (internal and external environments). While past studies acknowledge the importance of an open systems' perspective and the influence of the environment on strategic outcomes, they fall prey to key shortcomings such as a reductionist perspective and inadequate measurement. We provide an insight into the environment-strategy-performance relationship by using a holistic environmental approach and detailing the environments conducive to co-marketing strategy implementation. Managerial implications and future directions for research are also provided in the paper.     

Beyond matrices and black-box algorithms: setting marketing priorities with Marketing Strategy Conferences

With this paper, we introduce Marketing Strategy Conferences to set strategic marketing priorities effectively and allocate marketing-related resources accordingly. The system is based on managerial preference modelling with a decision model (analytical side) and communication-enhancing strategy conferencing (interactive side). After a review of alternative resource allocation frameworks, as rule-of-thumb approaches, matrix-based analyses, statistical analyses and management science models, we analyse existing analytical, behavioural and organisational impediments to effective marketing resource allocation. Addressing some of these impediments, this paper outlines two Marketing Strategy Conference cases, which we carried out for a pharmaceutical company, Schering Argentina.     

Analysing marketing customization strategies in Australasian firms: a framework for services and goods exporters

Previous studies suggest that services and goods marketers can share internationalization and market entry frameworks. Very little research has investigated any similarity of marketing customization frameworks of services and goods exporters. This study has proposed a common customization framework, which was examined using the experiences of 101 services and goods firms operating in a highly different environment. It was found that the marketing environment–marketing strategy framework for service and good exporters was mostly similar, but that the extent of the influence of selected factors was stronger for service firms. The framework of marketing strategy–performance was confirmed to be mostly similar. The results of this study suggest that, after internationalization and market entry mode theories, a common marketing customization framework can probably be identified across selected services and goods sectors.     

Behind influencer marketing: key marketing decisions and their effects on followers’ responses

ABSTRACT

Influencer marketing actions are mostly carried out on social platforms, e.g., Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, despite its increasing use, studies on this subject are still scarce. In this research, we focus on four essential factors related to an influencer marketing programme, analyzed in two separate experimental studies for theoretical reasons and methodological operability: brand control over the shared message and its commercial orientation; and, the celebrity level of the influencer and his/her congruence with the product/service they comment on in the post. We are also interested in the effects of these factors on a set of key responses by the follower with regard to the elements that form part of an influencer marketing action: the influencer, the post, and the product/service.     

Marketing for Muggles: Harry Potter and the Retro Revolution

Given the espoused importance of replications by researchers, there is surprisingly little evidence of its practice or discussion of its importance in the marketing literature. This is both echoed and reinforced by an astounding rareness of published replication research in journals at all levels in the prestige hierarchy. In this article we consider replication as a research strategy using a classic piece of published research (Hirschman 1987) as the backdrop. The article considers the factors that influence the selection of a research strategy and the possible uses of a proposed replication framework by researchers, editors and reviewers. The concept of 'research space' is defined and a framework is developed which delineates three dimensions of replication research. The paper illustrates how these could be changed or kept constant in a research project, again using Hirschman's "people as products" research as the illustrative setting. We conclude by showing how researchers, editors and reviewers alike can use the replication framework in their various enterprises.     

Commentary: advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond

ABSTRACT

Shelby Hunt provides an insightful, precise essay on the nature and contribution of the field of marketing across five distinct periods and concludes with a discussion of the potential for the field of marketing, both within marketing and across allied fields of management. This ‘promise’ of marketing’s academic future is followed by a discussion of the key factors likely to play a significant role in lessening the contribution of the field. The purpose of this commentary is to focus on Hunt’s key question regarding Era V: Is the future of the marketing discipline promising or problematic? As such, this commentary addresses four issues: (1) the ‘promising’ assets that the discipline has in play; (2) the slide towards academic irrelevance and, thus, the ‘problem’; (3) Hunt’s observations on how the slide might be reversed; and (4) my viewpoint on what can be done to reverse the slide.     

What Is and What Is Not Social Marketing: The Challenge of Reviewing the Evidence

This paper describes our experience in undertaking a review of the effectiveness of using social marketing to tackle nutrition problems. One of the biggest challenges was identifying programmes which could be genuinely defined as 'social marketing'. Here we describe how we applied and tested a framework for identifying and assessing legitimate social marketing research. Implications for both social marketing theory and practice are discussed.     

NFT marketing: How marketers can use nonfungible tokens in their campaigns

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are a record of ownership of primarily digital media, where the NFT is stored on a blockchain. According to the 2021 Gartner Hype Cycle for Key Technologies, NFTs may significantly transform marketing functions. Marketing managers wishing to adopt NFTs therefore need to know something about the marketing implications. This article explains NFTs in broad terms and discusses the marketing implications using a modified AIDA hierarchy. These implications can give marketing managers and executives guidelines on how to persuade consumers to purchase NFTs owing to their unique characteristics, such as scarcity, nonfungibility, proven authenticity, proof of ownership, royalties, and direct distribution infrastructure.     

Inter-firm Market Orientation: Its Significance and Antecedents in Distribution Networks

It is often argued that competition takes place between networks or value chains, rather than between individual companies. This means that market orientation needs to be recognised at this level, in order to understand how an inter-firm network can become more competitive and effective in serving its final market. Still, market orientation has been analysed only as a property of individual companies. This paper stresses the importance of recognising market orientation on a network level and as an inter-firm phenomenon. The notion of inter-firm market orientation, i.e.joint activities by firms that make a network more sensitive to market demands, is thus suggested. A framework is presented that discusses the meaning and content of inter-firm market orientation in a distribution network, and how it is influenced by different network and relationship characteristics. The framework is based on previous research on market orientation, inter-firm networks and relationships.     

Advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline: the promise of theory

ABSTRACT

Hunt (2018, Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?). Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 16–51. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2017.1326973) provides a synthesis and critical review of over 100 years of marketing literature organised into four eras. In his prognosis of the outlook for Era V, Hunt notes that there are reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for both the marketing discipline, broadly, and the field of strategic marketing, specifically. However, he also draws attention to the concerns voiced by a number of marketing scholars regarding the current state of the field and the future outlook for the field. Hunt argues that the prospects for the marketing discipline and the field of strategic marketing are closely intertwined, and that the health of the latter contributes significantly to that of the former. Against this backdrop, this commentary focuses on the promise of theory for advances in strategic marketing and the advancement of the marketing discipline.     

Remuneration Policies in the Marketing Area: Behavioural vs. Performance Measures

This paper analyses the design of control systems and compensation plans in the marketing area of the firm, using the framework proposed by agency theory. Recent research suggests the need to focus the research agenda on compensation policies in particular functional areas and jobs. Following this recommendation, our purpose is to isolate the marketing and sales area in order to concentrate our attention on the specificity of its compensation policies. The central idea is that, in a context where it is easy to supervise workers' or managers' effort, remuneration will be based on employee behaviour and will take the form of a fixed salary. However, if the effort is difficult to control, the firm will establish a compensation system based on the result obtained by the agent.

Our results show that the probability of receiving a variable salary decreases with the size of the firm (because of the scale economies associated with the control process) and job tenure (the asymmetry of information is reduced). However, it increases with the complexity of the task and the foreign ownership of the firm (which makes supervision more difficult). The results also confirm some differences in the remuneration systems adopted in the marketing and sales area, as well as between small and large firms.     

From Cattle and Coke to Charlie: Meeting the Challenge of Self Marketing and Personal Branding

Since the late 1990s, self marketing and personal branding have become increasingly popular as subjects of self-improvement books, Web sites and consultancy services, especially in the USA. To date, little of this interest appears to have permeated the discipline of marketing, either in terms of formal research, textbook contents or academic curricula. This paper examines the theoretical basis of self marketing and personal branding, identifies some of the conceptual, practical and ethical problems it poses for the discipline, and points to some of the challenges facing higher education in attempting to create a curricular framework within which marketing professionals can learn how to market and brand themselves effectively.     

Marketing and Conflicting Dates for its Emergence: Hotchkiss,Bartels, the 'Fifties School' and Alternative Accounts

This paper initially examines three lines of argument on the emergence of the marketing construct: the works of Hotchkiss and of Bartels and the textual monographs that proliferated during the second half of the last century. Each puts forward a different commencement date for marketing and different subsequent periodisations. The paper then considers observations on the marketing construct from postmodernists, critical theorists, anthropologists and historians. These accounts do not share a common definition of the term 'marketing'. Scholarship both within and beyond the marketing domain may be providing deeper and more relevant insights into its origins.     

The changing consumer in the Netherlands : Recent changes in environmental variables and their consequences for future consumption and marketing

Changes in many environmental (exogenous) factors during the eighties and early nineties affect marketing management and consumer behaviour in the Netherlands. Some of these factors relate to the effects of the economic recessions in the early eighties and the early nineties. Other factors are autonomous trends in a number of economic, demographic, and cultural factors. These factors determine a “macro marketing mix” for marketing management decisions of companies. In this article, we discuss the changing consumer environment and its impact on production and retailing of consumer goods and services in the Netherlands for the last decade of this century. This information on the Netherlands, as well as on the other nations of the European Community, is relevant for marketers operating in, or considering entering, the Dutch market. For governmental decision makers and scientists this information on future consumption and marketing is relevant for their policy and research.     

Mavericks and free trade: Chile's pivotal role in the formation of the FTAA

Bilateral and regional trade agreements are gaining importance as the World Trade Organization's negotiations sputter. The future of regional integration agreements (RIAs) depends not only on large countries such as the United States and Brazil, but also on small mavericks like Chile. This article examines the generic roles played by different players in the game to form the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), including Chile's pivotal role in helping the United States advance its objective of creating the FTAA in the face of Brazilian resistance. Managers need to understand the effect of realignment of trade arrangements on their sources of competitive advantage and adopt strategies to preempt their erosion. Other small countries that exist in the shadows of large hegemons that dominate developing‐country RIAs might benefit from lessons provided by Chile. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Avoiding academic irrelevance in the marketing discipline: the promise of the history of marketing thought

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a commentary on Hunt’s ‘Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: From promise, to neglect, to prominence, to fragment, (to promise?)’. We focus on three issues: (1) the historical origins of marketing strategy, (2) resource-advantage theory as a general theory of competition and/or a general theory of marketing and (3) the current state and future promise of doctoral training in the history of marketing thought.     

Hide and uncover: the use of secrets in marketing

ABSTRACT

Amidst the forceful public demand for organisational transparency, there is an ambition to explore the limits of openness. What kind of information could and should firms keep secret and under which conditions? In this paper, we explore the limits of transparency in the marketing domain and develop a conceptual model of secrecy in marketing. We describe three modes of ‘secretive’ relations: between the brand and customers who know the brand secret (insiders), between the brand and customers from whom the secret is hidden (outsiders), and between insiders and outsiders. The effects of secrecy in marketing extend along with these three modes. First, secrecy creates value for insiders by reinforcing their connection to the brand. Second, it provokes outsiders’ curiosity, especially when the secret is related to a prominent brand. Finally, secrecy establishes insiders as an aspirational reference group for outsiders.     

Sudden Death: Dissolution of Relationships in the Russian Transition Economy

A case study of a printing house in Russia is used to analyse relationship dissolution after the Russian transition to market economy in 1992, when many customer-supplier relationships inherited from the plan-governed economy were dissolved. The thin networks around the relationships, together with mutual lack of knowledge and weak interdependence between firms, made the relationships fragile and easily dissolved when exposed to shifts in demand and supply and to the new rights of the firms to choose their customers and suppliers.     

Influences on ethical and socially responsible shopping: evidence from the UK grocery sector

Given the growing importance of ethical and socially responsible (ESR) issues in retailing, this research uses empirical evidence from the UK grocery sector to investigate the significance of these factors on shoppers' store and product choice decisions. A number of different ESR shopping motivations are identified including global and local issues in store decisions, together with product heritage, animal and human rights, and advertising and communications issues in product decisions. Results suggest that both ESR and other influences are important in explaining shopping intentions, and that these vary according to shopping occasion, particularly whether the shopper is undertaking a main or top-up shop. Whilst in some circumstances ESR motives remain paramount to the decision, in others shoppers are prepared to forgo some element of this to overcome situational imperatives. Customer service, product quality and promotions are important motivators of shoppers even when they are looking for ethical and socially responsible solutions. Implications for retailers and research, the limitations of the study, and directions for future investigation are presented.