An analysis of social media marketing strategy and performance in the context of fashion brands: The case of Taiwan

This study examines the social media strategy and performance of fashion brands. Drawing upon the resource-based view, the study explores the influence of entrepreneurial orientation, innovation orientation, and market orientation on social media strategy and performance. Analysis was conducted using data on 207 Taiwanese fashion brands. These data were collected from a mail survey. Structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis were used to test the empirical relationships proposed in the research hypotheses. The results indicate that social media strategy affects performance; entrepreneurial orientation and innovation orientation affect social media strategy; entrepreneurial orientation positively affects performance; and innovation orientation and market orientation positively affect performance.     

The sublime and consumer behavior: Consumption as defense against the infinite

The latest financial crisis has aroused public discussion about the moral aspects of financial speculation and the rights and responsibilities of different market actors, including private consumers of financial products. Shifting the focus away from the level of individual morals and choices, this paper sets out to trace the discursive “conditions of possibility” for reflective and responsible financial consumption. Through a critical discourse analysis of media and marketing texts, the paper identifies and examines four conventionalized discourses of stock market investing: market mechanics, market psychology, market participation, and market expertise. The paper shows how each of these widely normalized discourses articulates investing as an individual enterprise of wealth management, devoid of broader social or political relevance. It is argued that the prevalence of such representations is likely to discourage social awareness with regard to financial consumption and to impede the establishment of fair and sustainable market practices.     

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.     

论中国当代的消费主义文化——以电子产品的消费为例

在当下中国,在外来文化特别是商业文化的冲击下．传统的消费文化发生了很大变化,其内涵也越来越深刻。首先,电子产品以其独特之处以及其在消费市场所构成的特别消费现象,成为中国当代消费主义文化的基本态势,商品作为某种特定的符号意义进行生产消费。其次,传媒和中国当代消费主义文化的联系更加紧密,时尚在促进文化交流、活跃市场经济方面的作用越来越巨大,但也造成国人消费观念的畸形发展。再次,传媒在影响中国当代消费主义文化的同时也带来了积极变化：传统媒体信息传播方式发生改变,媒体对消费个体单向度的信息灌输变成了有消费者参与的信息传播的双向互动过程,特别是互联网的普及,个人在信息的选择上拥有了更多的自主性。     

Exit from the high street: an exploratory study of sustainable fashion consumption pioneers

In today's fashion system, dominated by business models predicated on continual consumption and globalized production systems that have major environmental and social impacts, the consumption of ‘sustainable fashion’ takes on an almost paradoxical quality. This paper explores this paradox by focusing on a previously under‐researched group of consumers – ‘sustainable fashion consumption pioneers’ who actively engage and shape their own discourse around the notion of sustainable fashion consumption. These pioneers actively create and communicate strategies for sustainable fashion behaviour that can overcome the nebulous and somewhat paradoxical reality that sustainable development in the fashion industry presents. Specifically, we use passive netnography and semi‐structured interviews to illuminate the role of motivational and contextual factors that help shape these consumers' definitions of sustainable fashion including such key behaviours as purchasing fewer garments of higher quality, exiting the retail market, purchasing only second‐hand fashion goods and sewing or upgrading their own clothing. Central to much of these behaviours is the notion that personal style, rather than fashion, can bridge the potential disconnect between sustainability and fashion while also facilitating a sense of well‐being not found in traditional fashion consumption. As such, our research suggests that for these consumers sustainability is as much about reducing measurable environmental or social impacts as it is about incorporating broader concepts through which to achieve goals beyond the pro‐environmental or ethical.     

The Paradox of Competition in the World of Volatility

Abstract

This paper analyses the mechanism in which fashion is produced, marketed, and consumed from the viewpoints of the consumption and supply-side, in the midst of an increasingly complex meaning of fashion and dress in modernity. The focus of the study is a theoretical account of the paradoxical consequences of market orientation and supply chain management in the middle market of international fashion retailing in the light of the idiosyncrasy of the restraints that are innately embedded in the fashion industry. The result gleaned from this study has an implication for an alternative approach of market orientation in international fashion retailing especially in the industrial economies.     

Global Cause Awareness: Tracking Awareness Through Electronic Word of Mouth

The primary goals of social-service nonprofits are typically to raise money, increase behavioral participation, and raise awareness. The first two issues are easily measured with secondary data analysis; however measuring the effectiveness of marketing efforts in accomplishing the third objective has proven challenging. This research evaluates the ability of global awareness programs to raise awareness and initiate social change by examining the social media discourse that occurs during their awareness events. The findings show that events can create a short-term increase in discourse, however the nature of that discourse is affected by the disease’s brand personality. Additional findings are presented and discussed, in addition to suggestions for the implementation of social media tracking by nonprofits.     

Fast fashion: response to changes in the fashion industry

The fashion apparel industry has significantly evolved, particularly over the last 20 years. The changing dynamics of the fashion industry have forced retailers to desire low cost and flexibility in design, quality, and speed to market, key strategies to maintain a profitable position in the increasingly demanding market. This article reviews the literature on changes that have happened in the fashion apparel industry since the 1990s, highlighting the emergence of a concept of ‘throwaway’ or fast fashion. It describes fast fashion from a supplier as well as a consumer's perspective, and draws attention to several potential research issues.     

The Discursive Construction of Gender in Contemporary Management Literature

This article analyses how the new type of worker is constructed in respect to gender in current management literature. It contributes to the increasing body of work in organisational theory and business ethics which interrogates management texts by analysing textual representations of gender. A discourse analysis of six texts reveals three inter-connected yet distinct ways in which gender is talked about. First, the awareness discourse attempts to be inclusive of gender yet reiterates stereotypes in its portrayal of women. Second, within the individualisation discourse, formerly discriminatory elements of gender lose their importance but a gender dimension reappears within the idea of ‹Brand You’. Third, in the new ideal discourse, women are constructed as ideal workers of the future. The article argues that there is little space within this web of discourses for an awareness of the continued inequalities experienced by women in relation to men to be voiced and that this rhetorical aporia contributes to a ‹post-feminist’ climate.     

‘From a mother to another’: creative experiences of sharing used children’s clothing

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how consumers deliberate and incorporate concerns for sustainability in their consumption behaviours, through the lens of children’s clothing provisioning. Frustrated by the limited acknowledgement for sustainable issues within the UK mass market fashion retail sector, the participants reveal engaging with social innovation exchange initiatives, including networks of used children’s clothing. The research is informed by 28 professionally working mothers who navigate between meeting the social needs of themselves and their family with their growing knowledge for sustainability. The networks are symbolic of shared social values and building supportive communities that provided emotional and practical pathways for family provisioning. The research illustrates how societal discourse around sustainability is growing and how alternative market structures provide routes that appeal to consumers practically, socially and ideologically. Moreover, the research contributes to understanding opportunities that advance the sustainability agenda, for marketing, social innovation initiatives and progressing sustainable businesses.     

Drivers of eWOM engagement on social media for luxury consumers: Analysis,implications, and future research directions

The rapid industrialization and growth across the world have fostered the consumption of luxury fashion brands. Electronic word-of- mouth on social media (eWOM) is fast becoming an effective and germane strategy to engage luxury consumers through posting pictures, sharing reviews, and communicating information on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Extant research has not examined the antecedents and drivers that lead to eWOM behavior. We leverage self-congruity theory and through its focal lens, our study addresses this research gap through a survey conducted with 453 consumers in Mexico, Latin America's fastest growing market. Our results indicate that need for status, susceptibility to normative influence, and luxury brand involvement, moderated by authentic pride and social media influencers lead to eWOM behavior on social media. We also demonstrate that luxury brand involvement and susceptibility to normative influence mediate the relationship between need for status and eWOM behavior on social media. The study provides important implications to managers and researchers by suggesting long-term actionable strategies for growth that can help luxury firms develop a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals and competitors.     

Bank loan officers' perceptions of the characteristics of men,women, and successful entrepreneurs

Much anecdotal evidence suggests that women, compared to similarly situated men, have great difficulty securing financing for entrepreneurial endeavors. In addition, a mounting body of evidence illustrates how women in managerial roles are perceived in terms of sex stereotypes rather than in terms of their accomplishments. The present study extends this line of research to investigate whether female entrepreneurs are also viewed in terms of sex stereotypes.One hundred and six bank loan officers evaluated either men, women, or successful entrepreneurs on scales assessing nine attributes of successful entrepreneurs.² The nine entrepreneurial qualities were leadership, autonomy, propensity to take risks, readiness for change, endurance, lack of emotionalism, low need for support, low conformity and persuasiveness. It was hypothesized that sex stereotypes influenced perceptions that women, compared to men, did not possess the characteristics necessary for successful entrepreneurship.Results confirmed the hypothesis that characteristics attributed to successful entrepreneurs were more commonly ascribed to men than to women. On the dimensions of leadership, autonomy, risk taking, readiness for change, endurance, lack of emotionalism and low need for support, bank loan officers rated women as significantly less like successful entrepreneurs compared to men. While gender differences on the remaining three dimensions failed to reach statistical significance, women were never rated as closer to successful entrepreneurs than were men. These results are consistent with anecdotal evidence of the difficulties female entrepreneurs encounter in securing working capital. The results are also consistent with past research examining commonly held sex stereotypes of male and female managers and executives.These findings raise questions regarding the degree to which loan officers are influenced by sex stereotypes in considering loan applications from male and female aspiring entrepreneurs. From a bank's perspective, it may be important to train loan officers to avoid falling back on sex stereotypes in evaluating proposals for new businesses. Similarly, it may be important to alert female entrepreneurs to the need to dispel traditional sex stereotypes in the context of loan application interviews.     

Creative mass. Consumption,creativity and innovation on Bangkok's fashion markets

The becoming productive of consumer culture has been an important theme for social research. Within neoliberal discourse, the link between consumer culture and new forms of immaterial production has been conceptualized as “creativity.” This paper uses the experience of Bangkok's fashion markets to begin to articulate an alternative understanding of the relation between consumer culture and immaterial production, a different kind of “creativity.” We suggest that Bangkok's fashion markets manifest a kind of creativity where innovation is highly socialized, as opposed to being oriented around the notion of individual genius and individual intellectual property; where participation is popular as opposed to elite-based and where the ambiguous relation between creation and commercial success that is intrinsic to Western notions of creativity is replaced by an embrace of markets and commerce as vehicles for self-expression. Bangkok's fashion markets represent an example of a market-based commons centered innovation economy.     

A Praxis Framework for Implementing Market Orientation Into Charities

There is a scarcity of research regarding the process of introducing market orientation into the not-for-profit sector. Understanding this process would greatly assist the not-for-profit sector, which is under increasing pressure to obtain funds to operate and offer appropriate services. In this article, we examine the successful introduction of market orientation into three Australian charities and identify the stages of implementation. The introduction of market orientation is analyzed from a discourse transformation perspective and a praxis framework is developed. This is amongst the first studies examining the transition to a market orientation discourse within charity organizations and the first study to develop a praxis framework to guide managers. The study also pioneers a discourse transformation perspective in market orientation research. The article thus extends our knowledge of market orientation within the not-for-profit sector and increases understanding of practitioner engagement in marketing activities.     

Integrating marketing databases through regressed microsegmentation

In order to quantitatively target media to markets, media planners need a data base that contains both target market membership and media usage variables. In the absence of single-source data, containing both kinds of variables, researchers have sought to synthesize, or integrate, these data through a variety of different approaches. One of the most elegant is microsegmentation. While the approach has been shown to consistently underestimate the concentration of target market members in the most selective media vehicles, this study suggests that the method might produce a proper ordering, or better yet, a proportionate evaluation of media. This, in turn, suggests that a regression equation might be used to adjust initial estimates of target market concentrations, thus providing a better means of linking target market and media data bases.     

电视广告中女性刻板形象的表现、成因与对策研究

电视广告中女性刻板形象主要有贤妻良母型、性感美女型、小鸟依人型、强势女人型等类型，其成因是多方面的，对社会健康发展造成的消极影响也是多方面的。因此，必须更新观念，建立和健全一系列制度和机制，营造一个更加健康的传媒生态环境。     

Influence of gender stereotypes on advertising offensiveness and attitude toward advertising in general

Although considerable research has examined attitude toward advertising in general (AG), little is known about AG's determinants. This study investigates gender stereotype-related constructs whose relationship with AG is understudied and unclear. Structural equation modeling demonstrates that attitude toward sex/nudity in advertising predicts AG indirectly through the perceived offensiveness of advertising. Also, the more consumers believe that advertising portrays gender stereotypes, the less favorable their AG. Multi-group analyses, however, demonstrate that offensiveness harms AG for men, but not women. Also, gender-stereotype attitudes harm AG for female and younger consumers, but do not harm AG for male or older consumers. These results have important implications for advertisers in message targeting and advertisement execution strategies. Also, because unfavorable AG increases demands for governmental oversight and interference, the advertising industry should strengthen self-regulation. This self-regulation should proscribe traditional gender stereotypes and excessively erotic ads that may offend consumers, even if those consumers are outside an advertiser's target market.     

The Gendering of Entrepreneurship on Reality Television

Research on gender inequalities in entrepreneurship focuses more often on identifying or overcoming existing barriers rather than examining how stereotypical gendered beliefs and characterizations are created or maintained in the first place. We argue that the media provides a contextualized and sociocultural perspective into the gendering of entrepreneurship. Using a novel multimethod approach based on media framing analysis, we examine the content and social interactions portrayed during the first season of the reality television program Shark Tank to deconstruct the processes that normalize and reinforce gendered stereotypes and inequalities.     

The fashion‐conscious behaviours of mature female consumers

Under‐appreciation of mature consumers as a numerous and comparatively wealthy market segment has resulted in not only lost revenues for business, but also lost consumption and service opportunities for the elderly. In response to expressed needs for more research into actual and desired consumption by older consumers, this study examined the apparel and shopping preferences of mature women in America. Independent living residents were surveyed concerning fashion consciousness, fashion information sources and shopping behaviours. Young and mature consumers’ reactions to female apparel ensembles were compared. Mature subjects purchased apparel for pleasure or need, but less for conformity. Decisions were influenced more by fit and comfort than by fashion, despite suggestions that dressing stylishly was important. New fashions were encountered via catalogue illustrations, social gatherings and window displays. Subjects high in fashion consciousness had greater financial and social involvement with fashion, greater chronological‐to‐cognitive age differences and larger clothing budgets. Young and mature consumers’ responses to apparel illustrations differed significantly. As the mature market expands, attention to age‐divergent definitions of fashion (such as those based upon admiration of comfort) will determine the success of apparel businesses. Assessment of cognitive age will facilitate identification of those mature consumers most predisposed toward fashion consumption.