Consumer Consumption and Perceptions of Salmon

Abstract

The percentoffarmed salmon production has grown from 20.3% of total world salmon supply in 1989 to 52.0% in 1998. This trend poses a major challenge for the wild salmon industry. The impact of the wild salmon industry's marketing programs on the demand for ocean-caught salmon needs to be addressed. This study explored the consumption and perceptions of wild and farmed salmon among college students. Results showed that salmon consumption varied noticeably within this market segment, as well as consumers' familiarity with the terms wild salmon and farmed salmon and related issues and attributes. These findings suggest that the wild salmon industry may need to place more emphasis on product differentiation awareness and promotion campaigns targeting niche markets to increase sales of ocean-caught salmon.     

Language and visual imagery: Issues of corporate identity in East Asia

East Asian companies are increasingly positioning themselves as international players, carrying their corporate and brand identities across East Asia and beyond. Companies in the U.S. and Europe have, meanwhile, sought to compete for business in East Asia, with regionally targeted marketing campaigns of their own. The author points out that corporate identity—the names and symbols that businesses use to represent them in East Asia—must be defined differently than in the West in order to appeal to regional clients and customers. Faced with tough competition in terms of quality and cost, managers of corporate identity must be sensitive to linguistic and cultural factors in order to sell their products. This article summarizes the author's research on the linguistic and cultural factors pertinent to naming and visual identity issues and illustrates how strong sales in East Asia can be partially attributed to an appreciation of these factors     

Quality Assurance Certification for Hospitality Marketing,Sales and Customer Services

The article proposes that there is a need to extend quality assurance schemes to encompass marketing and customer services. The hospitality industry's involvement in the consideration of quality assurance schemes is discussed and the degree to which they have been accepted. An explanation of the Marketing Quality Assurance Scheme (MQA) is presented with detailed examples of the objectives to be met in assuring the quality of marketing, sales plans and customer service. The study concludes that quality assurance schemes for services and marketing are essential for the hospitality industry, in order to guarantee the quality of provision and to offer a bridge from quality assurance to the concept of Total Quality Management.     

Marketing control and performance in early-growth companies

This article examines the relationship between market performance and marketing control systems used by early-growth electronic component and instrument manufacturers. Essentially, “marketing control” means keeping things on track. Long pushed aside by the excitement of planning and organizing business ventures, controlling operations, particularly marketing operations, has received little attention. This is regrettable because control is the only mechanism which ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and that strategic objectives are met. Also, for the early-growth high tech company, which is already in a state of flux, developing an appropriate marketing control system is essential to its ability to meet and respond to the recurring challenges brought about by the pace at which change is occurring.In this article the author examines the issue of marketing control from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. First, the author presents a framework for evaluating the marketing control system within a company. The core of the framework presents the essential elements of marketing control: feedback and corrective action. Bounding the core is:

1. 1. The Formal Marketing Organization. Delimits the company's capability to enact the control processes.

2. 2. Marketing Culture. The subjective, interpretive aspect of organizational life, which determines what control components and marketing structure are valued in the company.

The framework is used to analyze the marketing control systems of 20 early-growth high tech manufacturing companies. Four hierarchical configurations of the control system elements are identified and the companies assigned to one of the following configurations:

1. I. seeking some sales.

2. II. making good on sales.

3. III. seeking profitable sales.

4. IV. making profitable sales.

Four companies possessed none of the elements of control. There were merely operations which produced results. As a consequence the companies were judged to be generally unsuccessful in focusing their resources on the markets that they wished to serve. In addition, the market performances of these firms, relative to others in the sample, were poor. Ten Stage II companies, in their attempts to expand sales and to remedy logistical problems associated with making deliveries on sales, had developed formal sales departments. Unlike the four companies which were placed in Stage III, these companies put little emphasis on the financial accountability of sales and marketing. Consequently, their abilities to evaluate or steer profit performances mitigated against their achieving high levels of market performance. Only two companies were judged sufficiently different from other companies to warrant placement in Stage IV. These companies focused on developing marketing structures and reporting procedures which provided real time feedback on market performances. Because of this, they appeared able to identify market opportunities that were defensible in the long run and in which they could exercise control over profits.In conclusion, the findings indicate that greater control of marketing operations correlates with stronger market performances. When performance is measured in terms of absolute sales, sales growth. cumulative cashflow and profitability, companies with more evolved marketing control systems perform noticeably better than do others in the sample.     

The role of influencer–follower congruence in the relationship between influencer marketing and purchase behaviour

Over the last decade, influencer marketing has become one of the most important tools for companies and brands to increase awareness, sales, or image strength. Since consumers prefer brands and companies whose image is congruent with their actual or ideal self, we could expect that consumers tend to prefer influencers whom they can compare themselves with. Therefore, congruence between consumer and influencer is imperative in influencer marketing and may indicate whether the influencer will be able to promote products to the target audience in an appealing way. Using a quantitative empirical study, we surveyed more than 7500 individuals measuring how they perceive a specific influencer's credibility, content usefulness, congruence, and purchase behaviour. The results suggest that if there is a congruence between an influencer and the follower, the impact of the influencer's experience and its content usefulness on purchase behaviour is stronger.     

Building Bridges: The Company-Customer Relationship

ABSTRACT

With increasing emphasis on relationship selling, a bond is often formed between the salesperson and each customer. When a salesperson leaves to work for a competitor, customers may follow. Small companies are particularly vulnerable since they lack the resources necessary for many sales force retention strategies. The suggestion is made that such companies can implement “bridging strategies,” company-level relationship strategies designed to supplement the relationship between the sales rep and the customer, with the distinct objective of retaining customers following salesperson defection. Using the three levels of relationship marketing described by Berry and Parasuraman (1991), specific bridging strategies are identified and analyzed. The pharmaceutical industry is discussed as an example.     

An Ethical and Legal Synthesis of Dumping: Growing Concerns in International Marketing

International law holds that a firm is dumping if its foreign price is either below its domestic price or below its marginal cost. Domestic firms often claim that a low-cost foreign firm is engaged in a long run strategy to destroy the domestic industry and harm domestic consumers. Dumping is a permanent feature of marketing strategies of numerous companies, and anti-dumping complaints are increasingly resorted to as a defensive instrument to stop the challengers. This article offers a synthesis of ethical and legal issues involved and relates them to marketing concerns in international operations. What is the current state of dumping legislation? What concern over personal ethics should a manager have? Using teleological and deontological philosophies of ethics the argument is made that the marketing manager who set very low prices for an international market is not behaving unethically.     

刍议新医改政策对制药企业药品营销的影响

近年来,我国医药行业有很大发展,消费保持高速增长,但仍然存在制药企业规模小、研发弱、市场集中度低,药品流通领域"多、小、散、乱"等问题。新医改对制药企业的药品销售从产品、价格、渠道和促销等方面都带来影响。制药企业要认真研读此次新医改相关政策和文件,规避新医改政策给企业造成的不利影响,并利用此次医改的时机和国家对医药行业进行结构调整的机会,从战略层面上来研究和寻求对策。     

Cooling off and backing out: Understanding consumer decisions to rescind a product purchase

Consumers sometimes have the right to exit a sales contract during what is known as a cooling-off period. Sales process research generally does not address cases when consumers withdraw from sales contracts during this period. Since securing product sales involves substantial marketing and sales costs, a need exists to better understand not only consumer rescission decisions and their legal context but also the managerial implications of the cooling-off period. This exploratory qualitative study examines purchase rescinding and develops a conceptual model using timeshare as the context. Results suggest that rescission relates to a mismatch between product features and personal circumstances, post-purchase concerns about product value, reassessment of financial capability, reflections on sales presentations, and cautionary influences of reference groups.     

A new partnership for the hotel industry

The hotel industry's long downward slide requires all parties—owners, lenders, managers, and franchisors—to cooperate to improve cash flow and property values. Here is an industry insider's proposal for improving lodging prospects     

Examining the intersection of race and gender in video game advertising

Women and racial/ethnic minorities account for a growing percentage of video game players in the USA. The economic future of the video game industry may, in part, depend on the industry's ability to adapt marketing efforts to appeal to the growing female and racial/ethnic markets. Contrary to these efforts, however, is advertisers' reliance on stereotypes in advertisements to quickly establish a common understanding and wide appeal to a mass audience. This study investigates how race and gender intersect in the stereotypical character depictions used to market video games to consumers. A systematic content analysis was carried out of 383 US magazine advertisements of console, mobile, and PC video games. Stereotyping and intersectionality literatures were used as theoretical guides for this research. Findings reveal that the marketing of video games in the USA upholds some longstanding media stereotypes of minorities and women, including that of the White male hero, submissive sexualized female, Asian ninja, and deviant Black male. The potential social and economic implications of the video game industry's reliance on character stereotypes for the marketing of video games are discussed.     

Evaluating government export promotion: some conceptual and empirical approaches

This article addresses an important aspect of marketing that has not received its due place in the research and academic literature devoted to international trade: It endeavors to provide an authoritative analysis of how to tackle the evaluation of government-funded export programs for companies participating in, for example, trade fairs, missions, symposia, or “weeks.” The article distinguishes particularly export promotion at the macro (government) level and the micro (firm) levels—this distinction is often blurred in the sparse literature on the subject. A general “a priori” analysis from first principles is followed by a specific, quantified approach of a cost / benefit nature; this is applied on a multiyear basis to produce the outcome needed to identify incremental revenues accruing to exporting and participating companies. Another specific approach using return on investment is also explored. The article concludes with some observations about current research and indicates further issues on which work is still needed.     

A marketing strategy for resort conference centers

Operators of resort conference centers need to take a strategic approach to marketing. In this example, one conference center operator is using computer technology to sales and marketing     

Time Perspectives in International Joint Ventures:

This paper recognizes a new era for international joint ventures (IJVs) in which venturers must agree to center the venture's efforts in developing new products, regardless of its previous primary purpose. After the reasons behind the cyclical evolution in the purposes and motivations of the venturers is reviewed, the paper argues that time is a multi-dimensional variable which every organization enacts in a unique fashion. IJVs must entrain the respective time reckoning systems of the partners if the venture is to avoid strategic and operational difficulties. Assuming that the venturers' temporal asymmetry yields asynchrony in the venture, the venturers' divergent time horizons are used to demonstrate the likely impact on marketing issues. This concept extends the literature on problems unique to IJVs by identifying an element which will help assess the compatibility of potential IJV partners throughout the life cycle of the venture's industry as well as provide a neutral issue on which all entities may operate for better results in all phases of the industry's life cycle.     

Integrated marketing communications in the Australian and New Zealand wine industry

Integrated marketing communications and the management of brands is a vital area for research in many industries. The global wine industry is facing significant changes including: retail concentration; proliferation of brands and labels; fragmenting consumer markets; and over-production. Improving the planning, implementation and integration of marketing communications activities is essential for the survival of brands and companies operating under these conditions. This research reports on findings into marketing communications integration in the context of the Australian and New Zealand wine industries. The research employs Duncan and Moriarty's (1997) abbreviated Integrated Marketing Audit to examine key communications issues and demonstrates that a higher level of integration is associated with better brand-related performance.     

Guanxi and Salesforce Management Practices in China

Executives in 111 foreign enterprises selling within the People's Republic of China completed questionnaires examining the extents to which guanxi was recognized as a critical factor in salesforce marketing, and the influences of such recognition on their companies' local salesforce remuneration policies. The results suggest that businesses which did regard guanxi as important for Chinese salesforce marketing were more likely to employ behaviour-based than outcome-based reward systems. This finding is compatible with the proposition that the banking and recall of personal favours, network integration, willingness to rely on partners and other guanxi-related characteristics can lead to sales performances for which outcome-based remuneration systems may not be appropriate. Notwithstanding the influence of guanxi on the manners in which salespeople were paid, volatility in the business environments within which firms operated encouraged their managements to adopt more market-led approaches to remuneration. Differences in the perceptions of the role of guanxi held by managers in foreign firms based in Chinese commonwealth and in other countries were also investigated. It emerged that companies based in the Chinese commonwealth acknowledged the importance of guanxi to a greater extent than companies with headquarters in Western nations. The longer a company had operated in China the more likely it was to incorporate guanxi considerations into its local management systems.     

Industry Structure as a Competitive Advantage: The History of Japan's Post-war Steel Industry

This article examines the role of the Japanese government in the development of Japan's post-war steel industry. It argues that the Japanese government's industrial policies facilitated the rapid growth and success of Japanese steel companies in the world market. During the early post-war years, the government instituted a set of comprehensive policies which constrained the supply of steel in Japan's market and contributed to the development of large-scale plants and the full exploitation of the economies of scale in steel manufacturing. The Japanese steel industry's sizable cost advantage, of course, derived from more than government policies alone. But, as this article will argue, through the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Japanese government used its power to exploit the economics of capital-intensive industries and accelerate the formation of an efficient steel oligopoly in Japan.     

An empirical study of the international marketing strategies of e‐commerce companies

This study surveyed a random sample of 136 e‐commerce companies to provide baseline information about their marketing and international marketing strategies. The findings show that one in five companies do not market internationally and another four in ten generate 10% or less of their sales from international markets. About half of the companies reporting international sales did not adapt their strategies to the international markets. This may have contributed to the failure of many of these companies. A more savvy use of international marketing strategies by e‐commerce companies could be very helpful to their future well‐being. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Small Food Manufacturing Sector in the Irish Grocery Market

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the continuing reduction in the number of small food manufacturing companies in Ireland by examining food manufacturers' self perceived performance and investment intentions in the context of retailers' supplier selection processes. The paper finds that the greatest and most immediate risk to small suppliers survival is their under—performance in generating retailers' sales andmargins. The paper also identifis a set of inconsistencies in suppliers' investment intentions. It is argued that small manufacturers, while appreciating their relative under—performance in commercial performance, are failing to divert resources into this area. The study also raises concerns about small food manufacturers understanding of their market and the principles that direct their innovation efforts.     

Neuromarketing: Ethical Implications of its Use and Potential Misuse

Neuromarketing is an emerging field in which academic and industry research scientists employ neuroscience techniques to study marketing practices and consumer behavior. The use of neuroscience techniques, it is argued, facilitates a more direct understanding of how brain states and other physiological mechanisms are related to consumer behavior and decision making. Herein, we will articulate common ethical concerns with neuromarketing as currently practiced, focusing on the potential risks to consumers and the ethical decisions faced by companies. We argue that the most frequently raised concerns—threats to consumer autonomy, privacy, and control—do not rise to meaningful ethical issues given the current capabilities and implementation of neuromarketing research. But, we identify how potentially serious ethical issues may emerge from neuromarketing research practices in industry, which are largely proprietary and opaque. We identify steps that can mitigate associated ethical risks and thus reduce the threats to consumers. We conclude that neuromarketing has clear potential for positive impact on society and consumers, a fact rarely considered in the discussion on the ethics of neuromarketing.