Conceptualizing the brand in social media community: The five sources model

The emergence of social media is challenging the ways that marketing academics and practitioners conceptualize and manage brands. This research explores the consumers׳ specific motivations for the purpose and structure of the consumption of brands in social media community. Keeping the evolving economic relevance of social consumption in mind, the resulting conceptual model has been designed to give a better understanding of the unique branding opportunities and relationships that social media present to brand managers. The research employs a triangulated method that includes a social media-based Facebook focus group and face-to-face interviews. The findings suggest that consumers expect some very specific two-way interactions with brands and that social media may be the only way to effectively deliver these demands. This study identifies five core drivers of brand consumption in a social media community articulated in the Five Sources Model: functional, emotional, self-oriented, social and relational. These core drivers represent unique opportunities for brands to enhance their relationships with their customers and to increase the likelihood of an active and beneficial online community built around their brands. Future research implications are discussed.     

New opportunities in social media for ad-restricted alcohol products: The case of ‘Yeni Rakı’

The rapid diffusion and technological evolution experienced in the new format of the Internet, particularly social media, have forced many brands to keep pace with this ongoing process in order to engage with their customers. Social media utilize multiple Internet-based communication platforms, including, but not limited to, blogs and social networking sites. This paper aims to examine how social media can be used to interact with consumers in the case of ad-restricted alcohol products, providing a case study from Turkey. The explored case provides an example of a well-planned, creative campaign that successfully exploits the opportunities provided by interactivity. The analysis of an alcohol product is critical due to the fact that such products face many restrictions, thus calling for a more creative and efficient approach to the design and implementation of social media practices, and their integration into integrated marketing communication (IMC) campaigns. This case will contribute to the articulation of the best ways to shape both business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer dialogue and fruitful applications of this new IMC tool.     

The Mediating Role of Customer Relationship on the Social Media Marketing and Purchase Intention Relationship with Special Reference to Luxury Fashion Brands

The reach of internet technology and social media has opened abundance of opportunities for marketers as well as for consumers across the globe. To anticipate future purchase behavior of consumers, marketers are not leaving any stone unturned. The main objective of this study is to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of social media marketing activities (entertainment, customization, interaction, word of mouth, and trend) on consumers' purchase intentions in luxury fashion brands. This study employed higher order Structural Equation Modeling to test the study model with (n = 243) sample data. We found positive significant impacts of social media marketing and customer relationships on consumers' purchase intentions. In addition, our study model confirmed full mediation of customer relationships in the relationship between social media marketing and consumers' purchase intentions. Based on our research findings, we strongly recommend that marketers of luxury fashion brands engage in social media marketing activities to provide value to customers.     

Innovation leadership: Best-practice recommendations for promoting employee creativity,voice, and knowledge sharing

Innovation—the implementation of creative ideas—is one of the most important factors of competitive advantage in 21^st century organizations. Yet, leaders do not always encourage employee behaviors that are critical for innovation. We integrate existing literature on the critical factors that serve as antecedents of innovation, including employee voice and knowledge sharing, which in turn lead to creativity and innovation. Based on existing empirical research, we offer evidence-based recommendations for managers to become innovation leaders by: (1) developing the right group norms, (2) designing teams strategically, (3) managing interactions with those outside the team, (4) showing support as a leader, (5) displaying organizational support, and (6) using performance management effectively.     

Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix

The emergence of Internet-based social media has made it possible for one person to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products and the companies that provide them. Thus, the impact of consumer-to-consumer communications has been greatly magnified in the marketplace. This article argues that social media is a hybrid element of the promotion mix because in a traditional sense it enables companies to talk to their customers, while in a nontraditional sense it enables customers to talk directly to one another. The content, timing, and frequency of the social media-based conversations occurring between consumers are outside managers’ direct control. This stands in contrast to the traditional integrated marketing communications paradigm whereby a high degree of control is present. Therefore, managers must learn to shape consumer discussions in a manner that is consistent with the organization's mission and performance goals. Methods by which this can be accomplished are delineated herein. They include providing consumers with networking platforms, and using blogs, social media tools, and promotional tools to engage customers.     

People Who Complain about Advertising: The Aficionados,Guardians, Activists and Seekers

Creativity is a driver of competitive advantage. It is found in firms of all sizes, but perhaps has greatest impact within the entrepreneurial smaller firm. This paper discusses the origins of the study of creativity, from social psychology to the business discipline. Creativity is then viewed as a key competency at the Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface, linked with related issues such as innovation, vision, leadership and motivation. The benefits of developing creative competencies are presented and linked to a knowledge entrepreneur's set of 21_st century business skills. A model of creativity as competitive advantage is developed, built from sets of internal and external factors impinging upon firm and managerial performance. Finally, a series of recommendations for both marketing practitioners and academics are made, focusing on the need to challenge convention in order to progress ideas, products and services into the new century.     

Women's Managerial Careers in China in a Period of Reform

This contribution examines the opportunities for and barriers to women's managerial careers in China, drawing on first-hand empirical data and existing literature. It focuses on four groups of managers: managerial leaders in government administration, academics in higher education, entrepreneurs in private and self-employed businesses, and rural women managers. The paper explores the Chinese characteristics of gender inequality in management careers against the current political and economic background. It highlights the low level in both quantity and hierarchy of women in management. The contribution argues that women are discouraged managerial candidates for a number of legislative, social and personal reasons.     

Leveraging social media-based determinants to build customer-based brand equity of a retailer

ABSTRACT

Social media is all about consumer networks and consumer relations that challenge marketers to leverage social media as a means to develop and improve their connections with consumers. Though tremendous opportunities via social media are alluring, businesses are still finding it hard to penetrate the clique of consumer interactions that are largely personal in nature. Despite the opportunities available through social media marketing activities, understanding customers and their behavior, and incorporating that information in marketing strategy formulation is critical to successful strategy implementation. This study takes a significant leap forward in this direction. Theoretically grounded in diverse fields, this study demonstrates how retailers can build customer-based brand equity using social media-based brand determinants. Using seemingly unrelated regression technique, this study examines how retailer brands can leverage consumer characteristics on social media to successfully integrate and capitalize on social media marketing activities. This research study has important implications for both marketing theory and practice.     

When customers get clever: Managerial approaches to dealing with creative consumers

Creative consumers (defined as customers who adapt, modify, or transform a proprietary offering) represent an intriguing paradox for business. On one hand, they can signify a black hole for future revenue, with breach of copyright and intellectual property. On the other hand, they represent a gold mine of ideas and business opportunities. Central to business is the need to create and capture value, and creative consumers demand a shift in the mindsets and business models of how firms accomplish both. Based upon their attitude and action toward customer innovation, we develop a typology of firms' stances toward creative consumers. We then consider the implications of the stances model for corporate strategy and examine a three-step approach to dealing with creative consumers: awareness, analysis, and response.     

Abbreviated Scenario Thinking

Scenario development is a time- and resource-intensive process, one that not all companies are positioned to undertake at any given point in time. As such, this article will propose an Abbreviated Scenario Thinking process that uses published scenarios from government and industry sources to allow companies to make strategic decisions based on the results. Scenarios are narratives that describe the possible futures in which one must compete 5, 10, or 20 years from now. They allow people to test possible actions by playing them out in three or four different ways. Scenarios are based on plausible consequences of events, environmental forces, and players as they occur in time, and create patterns of the future that can have substantively different effects on strategic decisions. Thus, scenarios are important to executives and managers in the 21^st century as they develop competitive strategies. By employing Abbreviated Scenario Thinking, executives utilize published global scenarios to analyze the driving forces that affect their organizations, asking “What If?” as an entry point to scenario planning. This can produce benefits even before any formal scenarios are written.     

New Communications Approaches in Marketing: Issues and Research Directions

In the early part of the 21st century, the media landscape has been dramatically affected by the introduction of new, largely digital media. This increase in the number of media has been driven largely by improvements in technology and how customers interact with the technology and each other. In this paper, I describe the kinds of new media that companies are using to engage customers and the challenges that these media present from the perspective of the marketing manager. In addition, using the management challenges as a framework, I describe the research opportunities posed by these media and where marketing academics can make the greatest contributions.     

The social significance of AI in retail on customer experience and shopping practices

This paper draws on practice-informed, ethnographic research to develop an understanding of the novel social consequences and opportunities afforded from consumers' interactions with AI digital humans as part of the in-store shopping experience. We reveal and interrogate consumers’ experiences with AI digital humans in an exploratory study undertaken during the launch phase of an in-store kiosk digital store greeter in a flagship store of a large national technology and appliance chain. Our findings contribute to understanding the social significance of AI in retail on customer experience (CX) and the managerial implications of consumers interactions with AI digital humans are described and discussed.     

Social value and content value in social media: Two paths to psychological well-being

The unique characteristics and universal popularity of social media enable consumers to experience their customer value and thus improve their psychological well-being. Hence, it is important for researchers to investigate how consumers experience their customer value in this new media and demonstrate how managers can use the ensuing knowledge for designing appropriate marketing strategies. This article is a step toward that direction. We explore the antecedents and consequences of customer value in social media so as to provide a deeper insight into consumer behavior and subsequently discuss its managerial implications. Specifically, we develop a model that incorporates psychological well-being as the endogenous variable, interdependence self-construal and independent self-construal as exogenous variables, and social value, content value, social identity, self-esteem, and flow as mediating variables. Based on data from a sample of 437 social media consumers collected by an online survey and through analysis of the data by SPSS 22.0 and Amos 22.0 programs, the study revealed that consumers can gain psychological well-being by either of two paths: consumers with a higher degree of interdependent self-construal will have a higher degree of social value experience, thus leading to a higher degree of psychological well-being through a positive mediating role of social identity; whereas consumers with a higher degree of independent self-construal will have a higher degree of content value experience, thus leading to a higher degree of psychological well-being through a positive mediating role of self-esteem. Managers can segment the consumers based on their self-construal and design appropriate customer relationship strategies.     

Inter-country differences of consumer ethics in Arab countries

Recent geopolitical events have placed the Arab world at the center of attention of the global stage. Nevertheless, there are many potentially profitable opportunities in the region for interested Western firms. Today global firms and public policymakers consider the task of understanding the Arabs' mindset a major priority and a must for successfully operating in the region. Despite this heightened interest, limited effort has been made by social and behavioral scientists to study that part of the world and its people. Most of the current research is journalistic in nature and tends to treat the Arab region as monolithic rather than one that consists of different likes, attitudes and behaviors.The present study overcomes some of this shortcoming by specifically evaluating whether consumers within the Arab world differ from each other with respect to their ethical beliefs, ethical ideologies, and degree of Machiavellianism. Utilizing a sample of 683 consumers from four Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Oman), the findings suggest that Arab consumers differ significantly in their ethical beliefs and ideologies. Specific results are discussed and managerial implications are offered.     

Once more, with feeling: Empathy and technology in customer care

Information technology is reshaping relationships between companies and customers, often bringing benefits to both. The unfettered use of technology, however, can erode customer care. For a company to care for customers, its managers and front-line employees must listen empathetically to what they have to say. But a rash of ‘innovations’ aimed primarily at reducing costs has made many companies opaque to their customers, who are—as a consequence—inadequately served and increasingly frustrated. Equally damaging is the resulting estrangement of employees from customers, a separation that dampens the empathy upon which true care for customers depends. As a number of innovative companies have shown, though, technology need not necessarily sour relations between businesses and those they serve. Indeed, technology can actually enrich them if senior managers (1) affirm their commitment to active, empathetic involvement with customers; (2) understand the ways in which current procedures and systems mediate interactions with customers; and (3) promote the deployment of social networks and other technologies to help customers tell their stories, and to enable workers and managers alike to hear them. Only when employees can step into their customers’ shoes can companies add authenticity to the claim: “We care for you.”     

Why strategy is key for successful social media sales

Many successful companies spend substantial time and effort engaging with potential consumers on social media sites. They determine how consumers spend their time online and develop interesting content to increase awareness and enjoyment of the brand—often only to lose those potential customers because the purchase process becomes too difficult once consumers have decided to buy the product. New technology recently introduced by third-party vendors allows companies to offer a sales option directly on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram. In this article, we present the effects on the consumer decision process created by the ‘Buy Now’ option across the consideration, evaluation, purchase, and post-purchase stages. We compare and contrast three distinct decision models: (1) traditional media only, (2) traditional media and social media with only a communication capability, and (3) traditional media and social media with the added function of immediate purchase. We argue that though the possibility of buying on social media will decrease the number of brands considered and evaluated, the number of purchases and amount of brand advocacy will increase significantly due to the ease of purchase. We conclude with some recommendations on future research.     

The Future of Managing Customers as Assets

SUMMARY

Most companies do a very poor job of determining the economic value of their customers. There are three primary reasons that this has been the case: (1) inadequacy of technology, (2) managements' internal focus on products (as opposed to customers), and (3) inadequacy of accounting systems. Each of these areas, however, has undergone rapid transformation in terms of their sophistication and managerial usefulness. As a result, it is manifest destiny that asset valuation and management will evolve to the evaluation of a company's most fundamental asset, its customers (i.e., customer lifetime value). Most managers have come to accept this inevitability. What managers fail to realize is just how radically an understanding of customer lifetime value will transform the business landscape. It will dramatically impact the breadth and type of data collected; the way managers view and segment customers; the types of experiences firms offer customers; the metrics executives provide to the financial markets; and the way companies structure and staff their organizations.     

Store attributes leading customer satisfaction with unplanned purchases

Understanding which specific factors of retail stores’ offering affect unplanned buyers’ satisfaction may be of great interest to store managers as they could set ad hoc strategies to target these consumers and establish long-term, profitable relationships with them. Satisfied unplanned buyers could indeed return to the store where they purchased their unplanned item(s) and/or positively talk about it with other customers. Nevertheless, we still know very little about such factors. To close this gap, this research gathered survey data on consumers’ store satisfaction and perceptions of store attributes in Spain during two time periods: in 2008, when the crisis was barely noticed by Spanish consumers, and five years later, when consumers were experiencing this economic situation. The results obtained evidence how grocery retailers can respond to customers’ awareness of the crisis by providing some managerial recommendations for bolstering satisfaction in consumer segments with diverse levels of unplanned buying behavior.     

Whiteness and Western Values in Global Advertisements: An Exploratory Study

This paper explores the emergence of sponsorship-linked events as a strategy to leverage relational outcomes through sponsorship investment. The growing use of sponsorship-linked events reinforces the need to understand the potential of such leverage strategies, thus the findings contribute to the body of literature on effective sponsorship practices. Findings from semi-structured interviews with Sponsorship and Marketing Managers suggest a shifting orientation among sponsors towards the pursuit of relational objectives. The privileged access to consumers afforded through sponsorship allows sponsors to manufacture opportunities to create intimacy with customers through sponsorship-linked events in relaxed, comfortable environments; thus sponsorship-linked events are positioned as a rich environment to add value to consumer–brand interactions and achieve relational objectives. Hosting specifically designed events affords sponsors an increased modicum of control over consumer–brand experiences in sponsorship environments characterised by a lack of control over sponsored property actions. However, this control may be eroded by social media technologies, which facilitate consumer–consumer communication around sponsorship-linked events. Social media, however, is proposed as a useful tool to elicit consumer feedback, addressing the misalignment between current sponsorship evaluation practices and emergent relational objectives revealed in the empirical findings. Therefore, successfully activating the sponsorship-linked marketing space demands an integrated and strategic approach.