Digital insurance brokers—old wine in new bottles? How digital brokers create value

This article analyzes digital brokers in the countries of the DACH region, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, from a business model perspective. We argue that the potential to create new value for insurance customers has not yet been fully realized. Our analysis has identified two strategic action areas. The first concerns the exploitation of the wealth of customer data available. Those digital brokers who will succeed in generating new content and services using data analytics have the potential to take customer centricity and individuality to new bounds. The second centers around introducing aspects of community, such as connecting peers and enabling them to interact. The critical success factors are volume, a high degree of automation as well as leveraging the infrastructure and data to delivering new, value-adding content and services that go beyond traditional intermediation.     

Factors Influencing the Physically Active Leisure of Children and Youth: A Qualitative Study

A phenomenological framework guided data collection and analysis of the prevalent influences on attitudes and behaviors of elementary, junior, and secondary school students towards their physically active leisure. Twenty-two students participated in individual in-depth interviews. Parental influence and outdoor play effected choice and level of physically active leisure for elementary students. Opportunities for organized and non-structured physically active leisure and friends were significant for junior students. Academic responsibilities and organized physically active leisure were influential for secondary students. Common threads were parental influence and the belief that the students were too old to start new activities. These findings highlight the importance of providing opportunities in safe environments for children and youth to participate in a variety of structured and non-structured forms of physically active leisure.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.     

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.     

Star power in the eye of the beholder: A study of the influence of stars in the movie industry

Organizations employ various risk-mitigation strategies to cope with the uncertainty in marketing new products. In the motion picture industry, an important strategy is to cast star actors and actresses in movies. The ultimate box-office success, however, depends on multiple stakeholders involved with financing, making, distributing, and watching the movie. In pursuing different goals and interests, the stakeholders may look for different aspects of star power to mitigate their own risk. This paper examines how the influence of stars varies across key stakeholders in the movie market. The results show that, in general, stars have a greater impact on the stakeholders involved in the earlier stages of movie development and exhibition (where the risks are greater) than on those in later stages. Movie project financiers and exhibitors are strongly and directly influenced by star power, but news media and movie audiences are influenced less and only indirectly. Situated at the early stage of the movie “value chain,” the financiers are most concerned with stars’ past box-office performance. Exhibitors, however, are influenced by the “match” between a star’s genre participation history and the genre of a specific movie. By contrast, news media and movie audiences are influenced indirectly through the stars’ impact on earlier stakeholders and their decisions. The findings shed light on the value of employing star elements in new products, the marketing of stars, and movie promotion strategies.     

Human capital in the Dubai hotel industry: A study of four- and five-star hotels and the HR challenges they face

Dubai brands itself as an international leisure and business center and home to the luxury hotel market. While hotel growth has been, and continues to be rapid, little is known about hotel employees, their demographics or how they feel about working in this industry. This article reports the findings of what is the first review of Dubai hotel human capital, noting there are significant difference in workforce demographics to other countries, for example, it is male dominated, highly educated, and employees note positive levels of organizational social capital. It also highlights potential challenges going forward.