Role of the Internet Site in the Promotion Management of Sports Teams and Franchise Brands

This study examines the role that a website plays in the development of fan allegiance and as a promotion management tool for a sports team and brand. Research indicates that the combination of sports, media (television in particular), and sponsorships when employed in an integrated manner, can develop consumer connection to brands. This study suggests that the Internet is also an important part of an integration strategy of sports, media, and promotion. By working with a new team in the AIFA indoor football league, the researchers were able to determine what helped make fans allegiant to the team before the franchise's inaugural game. The results show that even before the team played its inaugural home contest, fans had become allegiant to the franchise brand and team by using the team internet site. These results indicate that an internet site can serve as a strong promotional tool in an integrated marketing plan of sports, media, and promotion to move fans toward brand loyalty and toward primary goals of the firm, including increased sales.     

Signalling with official interest rates: the case of the German discount and lombard rate

A major characteristic of the operating procedure of the European Central Bank (ECB) is its reliance on standing facilities. It is intended that the official rates on those facilities also serve the function of signalling. The case of Germany, where the Bundesbank followed a similar signalling strategy, is analysed. In particular the paper investigates whether announcements of official interest rates provide information not already contained in other policy measures and whether the resulting revisions of expectations are efficient. Significant differences are found between signalling in the case of increasing and decreasing interest rates.     

A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR

Effective communication of capital investment proposals can be critically important to an engineer's professional development. Engineers frequently have difficulty developing this effective communication, however, primarily because they lack a clear understanding of the corporate decision-makers' commercial perspective and related informational needs. The decision-makers' perspective and the capital budgeting process are explored and several communication strategies are suggested to assist the engineer in more effectively presenting his capital investment proposals. The value of communication technique and the importance of recognizing and dealing effectively with certain psycho-social factors in inter-personal communication are briefly described.     

Calculation of policy-values for different rates of interest

Abstract

If we calculate the Policy-Values of a Whole Life Assurance for a given Age at Entry and a given Duration, but for several equidistant rates of interest, we find that the proportion of two successive values is very nearly constant. This fact is illustrated by Tables 1 a and 1 b, giving certain Policy Values on the basis H^M and A 24–29 respectively, for the rates of 3, 4, 5 and 6 % of interest. Tables 2 a and 2 b show, that the same applies, if to a smaller degree, to Endowment Assurances.     

Tourism and economic development: Which investments produce gains for regions?

Across three decades numerous metropolitan regions have made substantial investments in different tourist amenity packages. These investments were made to either capture a portion of the growing tourism market or establish an image that attracted the human capital needed to advance economic development. This article analyzes the returns for the tourism industry and for economic development from different amenity packages and finds those related to sports and amusements generated the most significant gains for regions.     

Inflation und Schuldenabbau

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently announced its willingness to do whatever is needed to save the euro. This has raised the question whether such a role of the ECB must lead to higher rates of infl ation. Under current recessive macroeconomic conditions in the eurozone, the ECB’s expansionary monetary policy will not lead to higher infl ation. On the contrary, there is a serious danger of defl ation. Higher infl ation would likely occur only if a permanent stabilisation function were assigned to the ECB. Yet historical examples show that mistakes can be made. During the stagnation in Japan, US economists heavily criticised the Bank of Japan’s timid monetary policy response. But in some sense, current Fed policy seems to be a direct copy of that strategy, caused by uncertainty about the proper communication channel. An infl ation tax could help to bring down the mounting public debt in the wake of the fi nancial crisis, but higher wealth taxes have more transparent distributional effects.