The Impact of Cause Branding on Consumer Reactions to Products: Does Product/Cause 'Fit' Really Matter?

This paper examines the issue of 'fit' between causes, companies, products and brands in the field of Cause Related Marketing (CRM). The linking of charitable causes and commercial ventures via their branded identities has become very widespread in the last ten years. The literature states that obtaining a good 'fit', in terms of the positioning and objectives of both product and charity, is very important to the success of CRM initiatives. However, there is no empirical support for this common assertion. This paper describes an experiment that was designed to test the assumption that 'fit' is important. The results of the experiment indicate that the degree of 'fit' between products and causes does have a significant effect on consumers' evaluations of products that carry a cause 'brand identity' as part of a CRM campaign. The results also indicate that cause cues in low involvement purchase situations create their impact by disrupting existing decision heuristics, rather than by the creation of new heuristics of assessment. This finding has implications for commercial managers when they are assessing the 'fit' and potential benefits of CRM associations.     

Using metaphors in new brand design

This paper addresses an important gap in brand development. While attention has been rightly focused on consumer understanding of brand imagery, insufficient attention has been given to how the firm's managers create, understand and communicate to each other something so intangible as a future brand's vision. We demonstrate how using metaphors in brand design enhances the ability of a cross‐functional team to create a coherent brand vision: facilitating both creativity and its communication. Brand visions are vital given the essential periodic improvements and mutations brands must undergo, without sacrificing the integrity and values which drive their purchase. Management complexity arises because brand development happens in a multi‐disciplinary environment. Moreover these different managers must translate the intangible meanings held by consumers into very tangible product and service specifications. The role and nature of metaphor in this process is examined in detail. We then provide practical examples of how this technique has been used with managers in a variety of branding tasks.     

Volunteer Service as Symbolic Consumption: Gender and Occupational Differences in Volunteering

Volunteering is presented as part of the resource attraction function of nonprofit marketing, a type of helping behavior, and a form of symbolic consumption. From a sample of volunteers, findings show that male and non-working volunteers are more likely than female and working volunteers to spend more time on volunteering and to volunteer for more number of organizations. Females and working volunteers are significantly more empathetic than males and non-working volunteers. Male and female volunteers and working and nonworking volunteers are also differentiated in terms of their values. Managerial implications are discussed.     

What Is and What Is Not Social Marketing: The Challenge of Reviewing the Evidence

This paper describes our experience in undertaking a review of the effectiveness of using social marketing to tackle nutrition problems. One of the biggest challenges was identifying programmes which could be genuinely defined as 'social marketing'. Here we describe how we applied and tested a framework for identifying and assessing legitimate social marketing research. Implications for both social marketing theory and practice are discussed.     

The Transformation of a Neutral Lake Landscape into a Meaningful Experience – Interpreting Tourist Photos

The purpose of this article is to present the mental images of the Finnish lakeland held by potential Italian and German tourists. Image analysis was used in order to find the attributes tourists connect to pictures of lake landscape and to their own mental images of the places shown. The attributes found were classified under categories through which the touristic potential of the lake could be approached. The mental images evoked by the pictures emerging in the present study are individual and cultural at the same time. Although the individual nature of the mental images became prominent in the analysis, there were identifiable similarities in them. From the marketing point of view, each picture proved to have a special function in a given country. The respondents approached the pictures both as outside observers and as participating actors. The transformation of a neutral lake landscape into a meaningful experience depended on the mental images evoked by both the aesthetic content of the picture and its internal elements. The neutral lake landscape was turned into a meaningful place through the experiences and sensations the respondents attached to the pictures.     

Ethical positioning and political marketing: the ethical awareness and concerns of UK voters

There is clear evidence of increased voter awareness and concern for environmental and other ethical issues, leading many organisations to reappraise and communicate more effectively their ethical credentials. The manifestos of the three main political parties in the UK show clear differences in their positioning on ethical issues.

Following a qualitative investigation using in-depth discussions and ZMET, a questionnaire was developed and administered to a representative UK sample of 1,000 consumers. This included a measure of awareness, concern and action on 16 ethical issues, the scale developed from the Stages of Change concept within the transtheoretical model.

Using principal components analysis, ANOVA and chi-squared analysis, differences are identified in the ethical positions of voter groups affiliated with the three main parties. These differences are not consistent between different sets of issues, suggesting further scope for ethical targeting and positioning by political marketers.     

Positioning Political Parties: The 2005 UK General Election

After identifying the paucity of positioning research relating to political marketing the construct is defined and practical examples of its application in politics provided. The analysis of the 2005 election starts by considering the long term framing of political issues and concludes that this, overall, provided Labour with a competitive advantage. Next the positioning dilemmas facing the three national parties in British politics at the start of the campaign are highlighted. Using a basic positioning model, the positioning strategies followed during the campaign itself are then discussed, both in terms of policies and image/emotional positioning approaches. The attempts by the opposition parties to reposition Labour and the latter's defensive reactions are discussed at this point. Then, the way the wider positioning of the parties was targeted at electoral segments is considered. The paper concludes with an attempt to explain the election result in terms of the relative success or failure of the positioning strategies adopted.     

Factors for Success in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

The importance of effective customer relationships as a key to customer value and hence shareholder value is widely emphasised. In order to enhance these relationships, the application of IT to marketing through customer relationship management (CRM) software, e-commerce and other initiatives is growing rapidly. This study examines the factors that influence the successful deployment of CRM applications, with particular emphasis on those factors which are distinct from other areas of application. Using the analytic induction method, success factors were derived from five in-depth case studies. Resulting factors underemphasised in previous literature include: the need for project approval procedures which allow for uncertainty; the need to leverage models of best practice; the importance of prototyping new processes, not just IT; and the need to manage for the delivery of the intended benefits, rather than just implementing the original specification.     

The Perils and Opportunities of Communicating Corporate Ethics

This paper examines critical success factors for ethics-related corporate communication with a view to helping companies communicate their ethical stance more effectively. We analyze this communication process from the company's point of view and discuss the implications of source credibility, attitude formation, audience involvement and media choice for image management. We argue that the ideal relationship between corporate ethics, corporate communication, and corporate image is a sequence of activities, with companies adjusting their messages as they change their business conduct. In this way, public perceptions are a fair reflection of corporate behaviour. This process should be a continuous, upward moving cycle that stops when the company's public image matches its desired image. We also point out the dangers inherent in communicating corporate ethics, including public cynicism and elevated stakeholder expectations.     

The future of marketing: brightest star in the firmament,or a fading meteor? Some hypotheses and a research agenda

Excellent marketing has always emanated from a deep understanding of consumer needs and expectations, combined with their right to be informed, protected and their right to quality of life. Evidence for this fundamental bedrock of marketing is provided. The problem is that in 2009 "marketing" just doesn't mean "good marketing", or even "honest marketing" and is widely seen as "mismarketing" in practice, largely the result of marketing's demotion to promotion and puffery. Evidence is provided for this view. The paper then makes some suggestions about possible new initiatives/directions for the discipline. These are:

? the name marketing itself

? making the discipline truly professional

? making marketing fully accountable for its expenditure

The accountability issue, however, is, in the author's view, the principal way to rescue the discipline from demise, so the bulk of the paper concerns this issue and sets out an agenda for research.