The Conceptualization of Nonprofit Marketing Orientation: A Critical Reflection and Contributions Toward Closing the Practice–Theory Gap

In this article three generations of research addressing the marketing construct in nonprofit organizations are critically analyzed: (a) market orientation in nonprofit organizations, (b) societal orientation, and (c) research contributions aiming to close the existing practice–theory gap on this topic. A qualitative study among 24 nonprofit marketers is conducted in Canada and Germany to develop a construct labeled nonprofit marketing orientation. It includes the dimensions of brand orientation, supporters’ orientation, commercial orientation, and service orientation. Furthermore, the authors describe the nomological net of nonprofit marketing orientation to present interconstruct relationships and to inform future research.     

Retirement and transition phenomena in the family purchase process

Research is needed on the family purchase process of retirement‐age couples, because 78 million baby boomers are rapidly approaching retirement age. Both boomers and the retirement‐age couples in this study present special opportunities to marketers through new roles adopted in retirement. This study reports on perceptions of family purchase process participation among retirement‐age couples. Results indicate that transition retirees' family purchase process participation differs from that of post‐transition retirees. This finding has managerial implications for marketers wishing to serve desirable segments of current and future retirement‐age consumers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Engagement behavior and financial well-being: The effect of message framing in online pension communication

People spend very little time planning for retirement, which could have negative effects on their financial well-being. To address this troubling lack of engagement, the authors posit that the use of goal framing, a marketing practice that involves making strategic adjustments to wording of marketing communications, in technology-facilitated communication (e.g., email) is effective for stimulating consumers’ behavioral engagement with pension information that is relevant for their long-term financial well-being. Field, online, and laboratory studies consistently show that a prevention-oriented assurance frame in technology-facilitated communication is twice as effective as a promotion-oriented investment frame for increasing participants’ engagement behavior. The findings have important implications for marketers and policy makers who seek to increase consumers’ retirement engagement behavior and financial well-being.     

Adherence of Retirement Mutual Fund Providers to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s Advertising Guidance: Provision and Readability of Advertising Disclosure

This research provides an initial investigation of whether US retirement mutual fund providers complied with the Investment Company Advertising Rules (2003) adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A content analysis was used to examine advertising disclosures presented in 953 retirement mutual fund magazine advertisements from 2004 to 2010 based on SEC’s advertising guidance. The results suggest that during the given period, retirement mutual fund providers generally presented mandatory and triggered advertising disclosures, but paid less attention to the readability of advertising disclosures. Implications for regulators, consumer groups, and financial services marketers are discussed in light of financial literacy and consumer welfare.     

Environmentally Friendly Consumers:

While the number of environmentally friendly consumers continues to rise, government support for public and nonprofit services continues to decline. Therefore, it is important for marketers of nonprofit and public sector environmental programs to become more strategic with their efforts and expenditures. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential association between environmental consciousness and environmentally friendly behavior. The empirical results support the importance of educational programs and demonstrates that higher levels of environmental consciousness are associated with higher levels of participation in environmental protection activities. In addition, the research indicates that the environmentally friendly tend to be homogeneous, donate to more than one environmental cause, and participate in both individual activities and environmental protection programs. The implications of the research findings are discussed and some recommendations for increasing participation in environmental activities and programs are presented.     

Social media marketing: Who is watching the watchers?

The ready access to and availability of social media has opened up a wealth of data that marketers are leveraging for strategic insight and digital marketing. Yet there is a lack of professional norms regarding the use of social media in marketing and a gap in understanding consumers’ comfort with marketers’ use of their social media data. This study analyzes a census-balanced sample of online adults (n = 751) to identify consumers’ perceptions of using social media data for marketing purposes. The research finds that consumers’ perceived risks and benefits of using social media have a relationship with their comfort with marketers using their publicly available social media data. The research extends the applicability of communication privacy management theory to social media and introduces marketing comfort—a new construct of high importance for future marketing research. Marketing comfort refers to an individual's comfort with the use of information posted publicly on social media for targeted advertising, customer relations, and opinion mining. In the context of the construct development, we find that targeted advertising is the strongest contributing component to marketing comfort, relative to the other two dimensions: opinion mining and customer relations. By understanding what drives consumer comfort with this emerging marketing practice, the research proposes strategies for marketers that can support and mitigate consumers’ concerns so that consumers can maintain trust in marketers’ digital practices.     

How ‘social’ are social media? A cross-cultural comparison of online and offline purchase decision influences

Traditional word of mouth (WOM) involves personal communications among family, friends, and others. Today, social media sites like Facebook offer the possibility of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), a mediated form of WOM. Little is known about the best way for marketers to use social media. Even less is known about international differences in consumer usage of social media and how eWOM influences consumer decision-making. This study helps address that research gap and uses cultural dimensions to compare the use of social media and other information sources for consumer decision-making across 50 countries. The results indicate that the use of information sources that influence online purchase decisions strongly varies by culture. For example, relationship-oriented collectivists rely to a greater extent than individualists on social media, which are an alternative for interpersonal WOM communication. Interestingly culture affects the influence of social media on purchases differently than the influence of traditional WOM through family or friends. Furthermore, there are major differences in online complaint behavior by country, due to cultural variations.     

Residence after retirement: A review and bibliometric analysis

This study reviews the literature on the residence after retirement via Systematic Literature Network Analysis, which consists of the systematic literature review and bibliometric network analysis. There are three research questions, including (1) what the most recent studies are on the residence after retirement, (2) Who the most significant authors, documents, and sources are in residence after retirement, and (3) whether the extant research structure could guide the future agenda for the residence after retirement. Based on the systematic literature review, this study extracts 50 publications from the Scopus database by keyword, document type, source type, publication period, language, and subject area relevant to the residence after retirement. This study analyzes data employing Nvivo, VOSviewer, and SciMAX. The clusters of authors, countries, keywords, documents, and sources linked with relevant studies on the residence after retirement are according to the co-authorship (1) author, (2) country/territory, (3) keyword, and (4) document. Skitmore, M., Xia, B., Buys, I., Hu, X., Hu, Y., and Chen, Q. who the most influential authors are in residence after retirement. The themes of aging, continuing care retirement community, retirement village, and their associated keywords contribute to future research on the residence after retirement.     

Assessing corporate demand for sponsorship: marketing costs in the financial services industry

Despite increased interest in nontraditional marketing activities such as sponsorship, the ability of brand marketers to quantify the return on investment from such approaches is a continued challenge. Given their proprietary nature, investigations of sponsorship costs are particularly sparse. Therefore, this study utilizes a dataset of more than 700 sponsorships undertaken by competitors in the financial services industry to investigate the influence of a variety of factors on costs. Results indicate that costs are not simply reflective of firm size, and costs of title and naming rights sponsorships are significantly higher. Evidence of agency conflicts are found in increased costs for sponsorships of events, organizations, and venues residing within the marketers’ home market. Sponsorships of sport organizations are significantly more costly than those of arts, entertainment, and nonprofit organizations, presenting a challenge for marketers seeking to engage today’s consumer via sport sponsorships in an increasingly competitive environment.     

Discussing Brand Information on Social Networking Sites: Implications for Global Brand Marketing

Due to the proliferation of information that global brands disseminate on social networking sites (SNS), how to induce SNS users to discuss such information is a topic deserving intensive research efforts. In recent years, scholars have begun to explore the topic from several perspectives. However, there is still a lack of conceptual theorization and empirical verification with more comprehensive probing into the psychological processes through which SNS users become motivated to engage in discussing brand information provided by brand marketers. The current study, based on integrative reconfiguration of relevant theories and a large-scale survey, develops and validates a theoretical model to explicate the key determinants in this regard. Data were obtained from 1518 respondents, who have been active SNS users for at least one year. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling facilitate validation of the model. According to the research findings, affective attitude is a stronger factor than instrumental attitude in predicting the discussion behavior of SNS users relative to brand information intentionally designed and disseminated by brand marketers. Additionally, past behavior in discussing online business news, alongside subjective norm and perceived behavioral control, exercises significant effect on such behavior. Most noteworthy, identity construction generates the greatest impact on behavioral intention and actual behavior among SNS users to discuss brand information that brand marketers provide to them. In general, the current study contributes to making better use of SNS for global brand marketing.     

The impact of professionalization and partnerships on nonprofit productivity

ABSTRACT

This research evaluates the influence of professionalization and partnering with firms on nonprofit productivity. Professionalization is measured in terms of the ratio of paid employees to volunteers, and productivity is measured through the ratio of total assets to number of beneficiaries, and the ratio of total revenues to number of paid employees and volunteers. Empirical analysis combines a survey to a representative sample of Spanish nonprofits, with information available from public sources. Results confirm the existence of a ‘U-shaped’ relationship between professionalization and nonprofits’ capability to reach more beneficiaries with lower assets; a positive effect of professionalization on revenue generation capability; and a positive effect of partnerships with businesses on the nonprofit’s asset-per-beneficiary ratio. Discussion sheds light on the on-going debate about the implications of professionalization and partnering with firms for the capacity of nonprofit organizations to attract resources and to extend their reach in a more efficient way.     

Determinants of retirement planning behaviour and differences by age

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the determinants of retirement planning behaviour and differences among three age groups: 21‐ to 39‐year‐olds, 40‐ to 59‐year‐olds and those aged 60 years and older. A national survey of 911 individuals from households with incomes of $75 000 or greater was conducted in the US. The significance of socio‐demographic variables, the ability to recover from loss, behavioural tendencies and perceived or actual personal control were investigated; together with their role in the prediction of maximization of retirement contributions and ownership in the personal individual retirement account (IRA) or Keogh accounts. The results identified several significant variables in the prediction of ownership in a personal IRA or Keogh, including age, sources of financial information, being an early investor and investor activity. The results also identified several significant variables in the prediction of the maximization of retirement contributions, including employment, income, savings activity, ex ante research, review of investment performance, early investor, investor activity, such as planning for financial future, setting up automatic deposits and reviewing financial information in the mail.     

Female Social Networks: Identifying Better Communication Platforms to Advertise Nonprofit Services in Rural Pakistan

Women’s access to nonprofit organizations providing financial and community services is an issue in remote areas of Pakistan. Weak communication of nonprofit services to potential female clientele is a significant barrier to women’s access to nonprofit services. This article examines how personal networks among women in remote areas may improve the information delivery about the women-focused nonprofit projects in Pakistan. The women’s networks also play a critical role in members’ motivating each other to join the services offered by the nonprofit organizations. The study used concepts of network and social capital and current network analysis techniques. Data from three remote locations in Pakistan were analyzed using a 2-mode network analysis, content analysis of nonprofit websites, and face-to-face interviews. UCINET software program identified network routines (centrality measures).

The study found that friends, neighbors, and local schools are significant information sources for women. Most information about income-producing projects came from their spouses. Information about social services came from friends, neighbors, or social gatherings. Husbands have high betweenness centrality indicating high power over women’s access to services. Closeness centrality measures indicate that women are not well connected for exchanging information on nonprofit services.     

Using virtual reality to increase charitable donations

Marketer interest in using virtual reality (VR) as a persuasion tactic continues to rise. Notably, one sector at the forefront of utilizing this tactic for persuasive means is nonprofit marketing. Many charities have devoted considerable resources to creating VR appeals under the assumption that this medium will increase donations over and above present tactics. However, research has not yet examined the persuasive consequences VR may provide over more traditional channels. This research seeks to understand the opportunities and limitations this emerging tactic can offer marketers. Specifically, we examine the donation effectiveness of three real VR charitable appeals by assessing actual donation behaviors, and find that VR appeals increase donations compared to a two-dimensional (2D) format. This work addresses a timely and relevant issue for practitioners and opens doors to future research investigating VR’s applications to marketing.

     

Trust in the Board: A Strategic Imperative in Times of Uncertainty

ABSTRACT

In turbulent environments, investors seek to minimize risk. Many public/nonprofit organizations evoke a sense of trust in their members by maintaining boards of directors. This study examined faculty member attitudes about the public/nonprofit institutions and boards who manage their retirement funds (n = 240). A structural model revealed that investors developed trust in the board when they view the organization positively through reliable communication, a sense of shared values and retirement funds that perform soundly. As a mediator of attitude toward the organization trust in the board also diminished investor perceptions of risk, and partially explained whether members cooperated and continued with the organization. The findings support trust as a key intervening factor in member-organization relationships and suggest building trust in board governance as an effective way to reduce uncertainty.     

An Evolutionary Process Model of Cause‐Related Marketing and Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature

Cause‐related marketing (CRM) is almost ubiquitous as brands of all price points participate in this marketing strategy in the United States and internationally, as well. The value that CRM brings to the firm, the consumer, and the nonprofit organization has made it a popular and valuable tool for marketers. Academic research on CRM has gained momentum in recent years as the strategy has matured. However, insights have occurred without a framework to provide structure and direction for this body of research. Given CRM's continued popularity, the purpose of this article is to (1) propose an evolutionary process model (EPM) of CRM to explain the iterative process (2) utilize this model as a framework for (a) organizing the systematic review of the empirical literature on CRM and (b) for identifying some gaps in the literature. Propositions based on these gaps are provided for future research.     

Dissecting Word-of-Mouth's Effectiveness and How to Use It as a Proconsumer Tool

Companies are increasingly relying on alternative promotional activities, such as word-of-mouth communication (WOM), to reach their target markets. From a consumer protection perspective this may be troubling, as consumers may not always be aware of what is commercially motivated WOM and what is not. Based on a synthesis of the literature, this article develops the first practitioner-friendly model, which explains WOM's effectiveness as an information source for consumers and why it is a powerful tool for nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Then nine recommendations are developed to help nonprofit organizations and government agencies use WOM more effectively as a proconsumer tool. This is the first article to conceptualize proconsumer WOM rather than naturally occurring WOM or commercial WOM and to specifically focus on WOM to protect and educate consumers. The study paves the way to an untapped research area; that of proconsumer WOM by nonprofit organizations and government agencies.     

More than meets the eye: The functional components underlying influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is the practice of compensating individuals for posting about a product or service on social media. Influencer marketing is on the rise, and many marketers now plan either to start using influencers or to increase their use of them in their media mixes. Despite such growth, relatively little strategic or academic insight exists that is specific to influencers. In this article, we describe the roots of influencer marketing and the many different types of influencers that now exist. We identify influencers’ three functional components: the audience, the endorser, and the social media manager. We then detail for each of these components the different sources of value influencers potentially offer marketers. We draw on relevant academic research to offer advice about how to leverage each component strategically. We close by describing how the interplay of these functional components makes influencers a potentially powerful—and undervalued—marketing tool.     

Controlled infection! Spreading the brand message through viral marketing

Viral marketing uses electronic communications to trigger brand messages throughout a widespread network of buyers. The process is often portrayed as a random ground-up phenomenon over which marketers have little control. But an examination of successful viral marketing cases identifies a number of strategies underpinning this chaotic phenomenon, providing insight into how marketers can use it to position their brands, change their image, and increase adoption rates. Successful viral marketing campaigns are comprised of an engaging message that involves imagination, fun and intrigue, encourages ease of use and visibility, targets credible sources, and leverages combinations of technology.