Taking a global view on brand post popularity: Six social media brand post practices for global markets

Brand post popularity positively relates to consumers’ purchase intentions, actual sales, and stock prices. Research suggests that social media posts should be vivid, practical, interesting, personalized, and interactive. However, cross-cultural research also suggests that practices might not be equally effective across different regional markets. While vividness and practicality could be consistently important across cultures, characteristics of interest, personalization, and interactivity might need to be adapted to the cultural conditions of specific target markets. We consider how individualism/collectivism, long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and high-context/low-context cultures could influence brand post effectiveness. We provide suggestions for how to manage social media brand post popularity from a cross-cultural perspective to inform both domestic and global social media marketing campaigns. Suggested practices include: (1) making brand posts engaging; (2) targeting the ‘I’ in individualistic cultures and the ‘we’ in collectivist cultures; (3) focusing on consumers’ identity in less long-term oriented cultures and on functional information in more long-term oriented cultures; (4) ensuring that posts help reduce uncertainty; (5) planning for one-way communication in higher power distance countries and two-way communication in lower power distance countries; and (6) making messages less direct in higher-context cultures and more direct in lower-context cultures.     

Selling whiteness? – A critical review of the literature on marketing and racism

ABSTRACT

This article provides a critical review of the literature concerning marketing and racism, grounded in theoretical foundations drawn from critical race theory, whiteness theory and attendant models of privilege and oppression in society. The extant literature indicates a relationship between racism, marketing and social hierarchies which manifest with regard to marketing representations of people of colour and racialised groups; discriminatory practices in the marketplace and the roles of marketing professionals of colour. However, multiculturalism and anti-racism efforts attempt to counter racist practices; yet, the impacts of these efforts are unclear. Directions for future research are suggested.     

Exploring the Antecedents of Brand Loyalty and Electronic Word of Mouth in Social-Media-Based Brand Communities: Do Gender Differences Matter?

ABSTRACT

Recently, social media have emerged as key marketing communication channels. In this context, consumers are increasingly gathering in online communities which have been identified as social-media-based brand communities (SMBBCs). However, notwithstanding scholars' attention towards SMBBCs, the role of consumers' gender in developing brand loyalty intention (BLI) has been scarcely explored by literature. Moreover, scant attention has been given to the analysis of whether gender is related to different propensities towards brand recommendation—identified as a proactive behavior towards a positive electronic word of-mouth diffusion (E-WOM)—in the social media context. Hence, this research aims to explore the antecedents of BLI and E-WOM by focusing on consumers' gender differences. A structural equation model has been created based on 250 surveys collected among SMBBCs of an American sportswear brand. The results showed that male consumers' BLI is influenced by engagement in SMBBCs. Instead, brand trust was the main antecedent of females' BLI.     

Revisiting Gender Role Stereotyping in the Sales Profession

This paper revisits the issue of gender stereotypes in sales professions given new views of what makes for effective sales performance and sales management. Women's continued disadvantaged position in the sales profession is documented, and the role of gender role stereotypes in sustaining this situation in the profession is examined. The paper then turns to the newly emerging, ostensibly "pro-female", view of sales. This emphasises the importance of building and sustaining relationships – qualities that women have traditionally been stereotyped as "good" at. Despite the positive emphasis accorded to women's skills in this new sales landscape, the ethical problems which arise from constructing this debate around the issue of gender are explored. In particular, the extent to which the view of women as "good at relationships" constitutes a stereotype is examined, and the value of this stereotype for redressing women's disadvantaged position from the perspectives of justice and utility is set out. In the final part of the paper we look at potential avenues for future theory and research which may help bring into focus a new view of gender role stereotypes in sales.     

Exploring interactive communication using social media

Engaging consumers in interactive marketing communication is instrumental in business–customer relationships building and development. Social media enables consumers to initiate marketing messages and gain growing control in the communication process due to its enhanced interactivity features. This study investigates whether communication between businesses and their social media users is interactive and how interactive it is. It also attempts to determine what types of messages are more likely to result in interactive communication. The findings reveal that businesses are attempting functional interactivity while individual users are increasingly securing a control to achieve contingent interactivity. Businesses are adopting a consumer-centric approach in designing and executing marketing communication messages to achieve interactivity though significant variance is established between businesses as measured by Interactivity Performance Matrix. Challenges remain for businesses as to how to engage their customers by utilizing the interactivity features of social media to facilitate relationships formulation and development.     

Are You Selling the Right Colour? A Cross‐cultural Review of Colour as a Marketing Cue

Should a marketer adopt a pan‐cultural or a culture‐specific approach when using colour in marketing? Colours exercise powerful effects and induce reactions based on both instincts and associations. Colours alter the meanings of the objects or situations with which they are associated and colour preferences can predict consumers' behaviour. This article reviews the psychological and socio‐cultural associations and meanings of colour(s) in a cross‐cultural marketing perspective and outlines their role as a marketing cue. Because cultural values, marketing objectives and desired customer relationship levels influence the choice of colour in corporate and marketing communications, it is argued that a cross‐cultural perspective of colour research and application is imperative for developing global marketing strategies.     

中美文化禀赋差异和国际贸易进入策略探索

在文化禀赋差异下,中美贸易进入,文化禀赋差异既是一种挑战,又是一个竞争优势来源。根据国际贸易文化互补和文化禀赋理论,采用霍夫斯德跨文化研究模型,分析了中美文化差异,跨文化禀赋贸易必须慎重对待文化禀赋差异,通过跨文化理解和跨文化沟通来尽量消除文化禀赋差异带来的不利影响,选择合适的贸易进入方式。     

Stakeholder theory and internal marketing communications: a framework for analysing the influence of new media

Effective two‐way communication is widely viewed as an essential component of successful internal marketing strategies, yet little research has so far been conducted on the relative merits of different communication media in an internal marketing context. Since the mid‐1990s Internet technologies have revolutionized internal communications in many organizations. However, the impact of these new forms of electronic media on internal marketing communication remains relatively unexamined. This paper draws on stakeholder and communication theories to provide a framework for understanding the dimensions of effective internal marketing communications and presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between these dimensions and the use of new media in the workplace.     

Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter

Many scholars have found that social media are extraordinarily useful platforms for marketers to engage their stakeholders. Much research has developed frameworks for and proposed empirical guidelines on how brands should communicate and interact with audiences on social media platforms. However, a comprehensive study that is based on a successful and reputable brand is still lacking. The objective of this research was to categorise the types of content used by one of the most admired brands in the world, Starbucks, and evaluate its effectiveness on Twitter. In total, the author studied 565 tweets and retweets and 1392 replies. This research found that Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy includes three types of original and retweeted content: information-sharing, emotion-evoking, and action-inducing content. The author also found six types of replies: information, Apology and suppot, positive comment, question and enquiry, chit-chat, and gratitude. To be successful on the social media platforms, this research suggests that brands should use various types of content, focus on visual content, and prepare for and manage customer interactions appropriately. The findings present useful and practical information for brands that seek to engage audiences using an inexpensive but compelling marketing communications strategy on social media.     

我国企业文化营销策略研究

文化营销有助于企业实现产品差异化及提升品牌价值,也有助于企业产品品牌与消费者之间的沟通。我国企业在使用文化营销过程中还存在着不能紧密联系消费者、无法建立长期稳固的关系、不能给予消费者迅速反应、不注重消费者回报等问题。企业在实施文化营销时,应将文化运用到4R营销当中,即建立与消费者之间的文化关联;建立消费者所需求的文化反应;建立企业与消费者之间长期稳固的文化关系;建立了稳固的关系得到的营销文化回报。这能使营销过程更加顺利,并更有效的达到营销目的。     

The effects of the visual presentation of an Influencer's Extroversion on perceived credibility and purchase intentions—moderated by personality matching with the audience

Influencers are ordinary individuals who have amassed large followings by demonstrating expertise in various niches on social media sites. We aim to propose (1) the visual presentation of an Influencer's extroversion as an antecedent to source credibility and purchase intentions and (2) personality matching in terms of extroversion between an Influencer and their audience as a moderator of such relationships. We chose the source credibility model and the similarity-attraction model as our theoretical frameworks. In our controlled online experiment (n = 165), the profile of a brand ambassador of a fashion brand was curated to create two levels of extroversion (i.e. low vs. high extroversion). Participants' self-reported extroversion levels were counterbalanced in these two conditions to create a personality match with the Influencer, entitled “extroversion congruence.” Our results suggest that the visual presentation of an Influencer's extroversion increases the perceived credibility of the Influencer and subsequent purchase intentions. Additionally, our findings show that these relationships were asymmetrically moderated by extroversion congruence: the positive effects of extroversion increase in the case of high extroversion among both the Influencer and their audience but decrease in the case of low extroversion.