Developing a Continuous Improvement Philosophy in a Marketing Organisation: An Examination of Key Events

This paper examines the process of quality improvement in a service and marketing organisation. This commenced with a number of disparate quality initiatives before the strategic business planning process indicated the need for a more structured approach. This two stage approach and the difficulties it caused are described. The company has faced a number of problems in the introduction of TQM, including a lack of senior management understanding of TQM and involvement, departments failing to follow through agreed actions and objectives, lack of support to teamwork and a failure to match up improvement projects to the skills and resources in the project teams.     

Disrupting Venture Capital

Global venture capital is struggling after a decade of poor industry returns. In this environment, relatively recent innovations such as disruptive modeling, OpenIPO, and revenue‐based funding indicate how venture capital may continue to evolve in promising new directions for investors and entrepreneurs alike. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Addendum: Are Supermarket Advertisements Designed to Deceive Consumers?

This study builds upon previous research by assessing the magnitude and incidence of experimentally-determined deceptive advertising decisions in supermarket advertisements. In essence, it illustrates the logical second step in a viable approach to estimating the potential for deceptive advertising in other communities and for other types of products.     

Replicating the Effect of Advertised Specials at Regular Price on Food Shopper Price Evaluation

This study verifies a previous finding that food shoppers can correctly identify the advertised price level for items featured at the regular price in the context of a newspaper ad. Morever, advertising regular-priced items in prominent positions did not materially affect their price accuracy scores.     

The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials

This study investigated the possible effect of television program types on the recall performance of humorous television commercials. An experimental design was developed to test the relative performance of the same humorous and non-humorous ads in three different contextual environments—situation comedy, action/adventure, and documentary. The findings indicate that the recall performance of commercials and of the product or service promoted are both affected by the program environment within which the ads appear.     

Synchronising retail and space: using urban squares for competitive place differentiation

This essay probes the critical dimensions of consumer‐culture theory (CCT) by investigating managerial tendencies toward integrating consumers from above or even imposing culture from on high, rather than viewing consumer culture as something that arises from the consumers themselves. Illustrations based on the use of background music or Muzak support concerns that culture is degraded by marketers as a means of social control. Attempts of an organization such as Pipedown to resist background music present an impression of futility in the face of hegemony. Hence we draw attention to the apparently predominant commercial thrust toward and mass susceptibility to manipulation, as born out by the ubiquity of background music and by the apparent lack of meaningful counter‐play by consumers. Noting the lacunae in our critical understanding of consumption, markets, and culture from the CCT perspective, we consider the ideological consequences.