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.     

How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix

Combining survey data with real-market data, this research investigates brand awareness from three perspectives. This study examines the relation between brand awareness and market outcome and explores the relation between brand awareness and brand equity. The study also investigates the effects of marketing mix elements on brand awareness. Results reveal consumers' brand usage experiences contribute to brand awareness, implying experience precedes awareness in some contexts. The results also confirm positive association between brand awareness and brand equity. Lastly, the current work demonstrates the importance of distribution and price promotion in building brand awareness in a consumer-packaged goods category.     

休闲旅游城市品牌营销评价体系研究

现代城市在进行品牌推广时,常常忽视了营销效果评价的作用。合理的营销效果评价,能够总结出以往营销过程中的不足,对未来营销活动的实践提供借鉴。休闲旅游城市具有其自身特点,在进行品牌营销评价时应当充分考虑这些特点,使营销活动更具有针对性和可行性。休闲旅游城市品牌营销评价体系从品牌建设、品牌传播、品牌管理三个系统层、九个领域、三十三个指标,从政府统计数据和游客感知数据两个角度对杭州城市品牌营销进行评价,并对评价结果进行分析,以期为杭州未来城市营销实践提供合理建议。     

Effective employment brand equity through sustainable competitive advantage, marketing strategy, and corporate image

Traditional human resource management does not consider adopting a marketing approach in creating a positive company image to enable the recruitment of better employees. Recently, however, many scholars have attempted to apply marketing principles to recruitment management. Marketing can help create an effective image for a firm and position the firm as a good place to work. The study here examine ways marketing management relates to recruitment marketing in the hospital industry and finds that a hospital's sustainable competitive advantage, marketing strategy, and employment brand equity can influence the intention of medical doctors to pursue job opportunities.     

Elaboration of marketing communication through visual media: An empirical analysis

Visual media plays a significant role in the marketing and promotion of several international tourism services in today's connected marketplace, in particular here, international tertiary education. This study was developed to examine how visual media influence potential audiences' perception towards a specific educational tourism destination through the theoretical framework of Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). Researchers compare central and peripheral routes of individual persuasion via visual media and this aids marketers' understanding of how visual media impact consumers' purchase decisions. This study confirms a positive relationship between argument quality, audience engagement, source credibility, audience involvement and international students as tourists' perceived destination image. The findings suggest that peripheral routes of persuasion have stronger effects on individual adoption of information than central routes of persuasion. The study provides useful insight for tertiary education agents who promote international studies, destination marketers, and other users of visual media communicators.     

The influence of relationship marketing orientation on brand equity in banks

During the last few decades, business philosophy has shifted from marketing orientation to Relationship Marketing Orientation (RMO). Service-oriented organizations, such as banks, increasingly apply RMO to enhance their brand management practices, such as brand loyalty and brand image. This in turn creates an identity for their brand name and adds value to it. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of RMO on Brand Equity in the banking industry. This study also examines the influence of the dimensions of RMO (trust, bonding, communication, shared values, empathy and reciprocity) on the development of Brand Equity in banks. Social exchange theory underpins this examination of the relationship between RMO and Brand Equity. The sample comprised 1400 commercial bank customers from Sri Lanka, and the surveys were administered for data collection. There were two main stages to the analysis: testing the measurement model using confirmatory factor analysis and testing the hypotheses. The findings revealed that RMO positively influenced the development of Brand Equity in banks. Of the dimensions of RMO examined here, Trust, Communication, Shared Values and Empathy significantly enhanced Brand Equity. The implications of these findings for theory and practice have been suggested. The findings of this study have practical applications for enhancing the Brand Equity of banks and other financial institutions by strengthening their relationship marketing practices. This study also suggests some insightful directions for future research.     

Beyond the world of packaged goods: assessing the relevance of integrated marketing communications for retail and consumer service marketing

Product and packaged goods marketers have responded to changing consumer and media environments by adopting integrated approaches to marketing communication. The value and utility of such approaches likely extend to a wide range of marketers, but there have been few published attempts to examine the viability of the integrated marketing communication concept in retail and service marketing. This study addresses this void by using a seven-stage model of integrated marketing communications to examine the media and message delivery practices of national and regional retailers and consumer service marketers. The results of a national mail survey found many of these marketers using such key integrated marketing communication elements as multiple media, databases, individual-level consumer information and behavioural response measures in their media and message delivery practices. Few, however, were using these elements in a strategic or coordinated fashion. Integrated approaches thus appear to have much value in retail and service marketing, particularly as a means for coordinating media and message delivery elements in a fashion that provides a way to link behavioural responses to media vehicles and advertising messages.     

The retailer's marketing mix and commercial performance

This paper concerns the management and organization of the marketing function within large multiple retail organizations. The elements of the retailer's marketing mix are identified and the hypothesis is developed that the breadth of control over the marketing mix by a marketing department should correlate positively with commercial performance. A postal survey of British retailers failed to demonstrate such a relationship, indicating that there is no obvious justification for a retailer to centralize most of its marketing in one large department. Instead, a positive correlation is found between there being strength in marketing in the retailer's buying department and commercial performance indicating that marketing that marketing expertise should not be concentrated into a specialist department.     

Communication and marketing of services by religious organizations in India

Marketing communication is a vital strategic tool for religious organizations to achieve competitive differentiation. The study uses media richness theory with competitive response to develop hypotheses about the use of personal and non-personal channels by religious organizations. The study uses unique primary survey data on 568 Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Jain organizations spread over 7 states in India, collected between 2006 and 2008, to investigate the marketing communication strategy of religious organizations in response to their competitors' use of non-personal communication channels and provision of non-religious services. The findings suggest that if a competitor uses higher non-personal communication channels, then this evokes a retaliatory reaction with the incumbent, increasing their personal communication channels. Second, an incumbent who is more responsive to a competitor increasing their non-religious service provision will respond by increasing their non-personal communication channels and by decreasing their personal channels. The findings have implications for managers who need to select the richness of the media for their communications' strategy in the context of competitive response.     

Exploring globalization and marketing performance at the 2012 Global Marketing Conference at Seoul

This special issue of the Journal of Business Research features sixteen articles selected from papers presented during the third Global Marketing Conference held in Seoul, July 19–22, 2012, hosted by Korean Scholars of Marketing Science, European Marketing Academy, Japan Society of Marketing and Distribution, International Textile and Apparel Association, and Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. The articles offer readers an interesting mix of topics and methods in complex and global marketing environments. They offer marketing practitioners new ideas and approaches for dealing effectively with the increasingly challenging marketing world and provide marketing researchers insights that may inspire future research.     

Impact of culture on marketing strategy: Introduction to the special issue

This special issue of the Journal of Business Research features eleven articles selected from the papers presented during the fourth meeting of the Royal Bank International Research Seminar which took place in Montreal at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, September 23 and 24, 2007. They cover topics related to culture and marketing communications, consumer socialization, materialism, identity and religiosity, service quality, language effects, consumer revenge behavior and government actions.     

Explaining the marketing effort of professional service providers: An exploratory study

A mail survey was done of professionals from major architectural, law, and accounting firms to determine what factors seem to explain how much effort they devote to marketing their firms' services. The results of this exploratory study identified several significant explanatory variables, a few of which had effects in some professions and not others. Additional research in this area is recommended.     

Differentiation via the marketing mix

In this paper we investigate the conjecture that increasing marketing mix specialization enhances firm performance. We start by identifying two dimensions of specialization — absolute (concentration of expenditures) and relative to competition (distinctiveness). We then propose underlying mechanisms that lead to effects of marketing mix specialization on firm performance. Using these guidelines we specify an empirical model that relates marketing mix specialization to firm performance. We estimate this model using PIMS data and find support for our propositions.The authors gratefully acknowledge the Isle Maligne Fund at the Fuqua School of Business, the Strategic Planning Institute, and the Wharton PIMS Research Center for their research support; and thank Jim Bettman, Kevin Keller, Debu Purohit, and Rick Staelin for their helpful comments.     

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.     

Business strategy and the management of digital marketing

The internet brought disruptive change to the business landscape through the creation of a whole host of digital marketing tactics. But with these new tactical options has come the need for marketing managers to (1) prioritize what they wish to accomplish and (2) determine which digital marketing tactics to invest in. We consider these issues from the perspective of four business strategies: prospectors, analyzers, low-cost defenders, and differentiated defenders. In this article, we provide marketing managers with insights into how businesses pursuing various strategies approach these digital marketing issues, with the ultimate goal being to assist managers in the efficient and effective implementation of their firm’s adopted strategy.     

Assessing the influence of marketing research on the social science literature

Citation analysis indicates that theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of Marketing Research contribute primarily to marketing and other business areas as opposed to nonbusiness social sciences. The journals are also heavily cited by practitioner-oriented publications. A list of most cited articles is provided.The authors acknowledge the research funding from Washington State University and the National University of Singapore for this project.     

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.     

An examination of the use of legitimate power in marketing channels

The importance of understanding and managing the channel conflict process has been well discussed, however little research has been conducted to examine the relationship between channel conflict and channel structure. In order to provide the focus for an in-depth research effort, this investigation was restricted to one type of channel structure, a retailer-owned co-operative wholesaling-retailing system, and to an examination of the role and importance of legitimate power as it contributes to channel conflict. A cross-sectional study was conducted of management and boards of directors of the wholesaler and 165 member-retailers of the Co-operative Retailing System. Results from correlational analysis of the aggregated data from sixty-four retail outlets indicated that a co-operative retailing-wholesaling system offers a model of distribution where the benefits of independence and co-ordination have been melded. From the retailers' perspective, autonomy for the independent retailers and a degree of control over channel decisions is offered. For the wholesaler, the decision-making structure provides a model for managing relations between large and small organizations which incorporates a mechanism for conflict resolution, while maintaining standardized delivery of products and services.     

Network development in international project marketing and the impact of external facilitation

This article reports on an experiment in external facilitation of international project marketing activity. The case involved a large, World Bank funded project in China aimed at upgrading grain storage and handling facilities. An organization was established in Australia to bring together and support efforts by Australian firms to win a share of this project. Network-building, at a number of levels both in China and Australia, emerged from the qualitative study as a critical factor in effective project marketing. External facilitation played a positive role in the network-building process.