Acceptance of Genetically Modified Foods with Health Benefits: A Study in Germany

A study was carried out in Germany in order to assess consumers' acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods with health benefits (bread, yohurt and eggs). Acceptability of GM foods increases when its source does not involve animal products such as eggs. Three factors have been identified as direct antecedents of the acceptance of GM foods: respondents' attitude towards biotechnology, health consciousness, and time pressure, being the first one the most salient one. Price consciousness has an indirect positive impact (mediated by health consciousness) upon acceptance of GM products. Males were more likely to accept GM foods with health benefits.     

Understanding Attitude and Behavior of Canadian Consumers Toward Organic Wine

The main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of organic wine purchase and understand their effect in order to illustrate what influences whether Canadian consumers are willing to buy this special type of wine. The data for this study were collected across Canada by means of an online self-administered consumer questionnaire survey. Our major findings indicate that the attitude toward organic wine is defined mainly by consumers’ health consciousness and is negatively influenced by the wine involvement pleasure experienced with regular wine. Interestingly, Canadians are not forming positive attitudes toward organic wine based on their knowledge of organic production and its offering. The main predictors of organic wine purchase are attitude toward organic wine and wine involvement interest. Unexpectedly, price consciousness was not found to be a good predictor of organic wine purchase.     

An Investigation of Egyptian Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Ethical Issues in Advertising

This article investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising held by a sample of 306 participants. The subjects completed a 20-item instrument originally designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward controversial issues in advertising. The study validates the scale in an Arab non-Western context. The results revealed that Egyptian consumers have negative attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. There are significant differences between males’ and females’ perceptions of ethics in advertising. Finally, the study detects a significant difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt regarding their attitudes toward ethical issues in advertising. These results lend strong support to the adaptation hypothesis and suggest that ads produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are different culturally.     

Measuring Consumer Ethnocentrism: An Assessment of Reliability,Validity and Dimensionality of the CETSCALE in a Developing Market

ABSTRACT

Based on 305 surveyed consumers in Zimbabwe’s two major cities (Harare and Bulawayo), the study sought mainly to measure consumer ethnocentrism and to test psychometric properties of the CETSCALE in Zimbabwe using structural equation modeling. It was established that the construct of consumer ethnocentrism comprises two dimensions, namely negative influence of foreign products, and preference for domestic products. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to be moderately high. The psychometric properties of the CETSCALE tested above the required thresholds. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to negatively influence consumer attitude towards imported poultry products. The study has implications for managers and future researchers.     

Money,Inflation and Output in Nigeria and South Africa: Could Friedman and Schwartz Be Right?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the non-linear relationship between money, inflation and output with respect to the Friedman and Schwartz hypotheses that monetary policy affects prices in the long-run but not in the short-run, and influences output in the short-run but not in the long-run. The study examines the case of Nigeria and South Africa for the period 1970–2016 using the ARDL approach. The study proved that Friedman and Schwartz were right that money growth influences output in the short-run and not in the long-run. This suggests monetary policy is neutral in the long-run; however, the findings of this study cast some doubts on their popular view that money growth affect prices in the long-run but not in the short-run. This study shows that money growth actually affects prices both in the short and long-run. Thus, it is only the long-run dimension of the second hypothesis that is valid; the short-run view of the hypothesis is invalid for both Nigeria and South Africa. In fact, the significant estimates of money growth on inflation in both countries prove that inflation is everywhere a monetary phenomenon (both in the short and long run).     

Comparative Effects of Organization–Public Relationships and Product‐related Attributes on Brand Attitude

This study empirically investigates how the dimensions of organization–public relationships, i.e. trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction, are related to brand attitude formation. In order to establish a benchmark for analysis, it also compares the effects of organization–public relationships on brand attitude to those of product‐related attribute beliefs. The results of a survey conducted using a branded laptop computer product showed that, while both organization–public relationships and product‐related attributes were significantly related to attitude towards the brand, among the dimensions of organization–public relationships only ‘satisfaction’ was a significant predictor of brand attitude. In addition, the explanatory power of organization–public relationships was found to be weaker than that of product‐related attribute beliefs in predicting brand attitudes.     

Effects beyond click-through: Incidental exposure to web advertising

While Web advertising tends to be based on a direct response model, there is a growing debate about the brand building potentials of Web ads. Click-through rates (CTR) are disappointingly low, but Web ads can be effective at brand building in an environment where Web ads are outside of consumers' attentional focus. With this in mind we conducted two experiments. The first experiment examined the effects of incidental exposure to banner ads. Subjects who were incidentally exposed to banner ads reported greater priming effects induced by implicit memory, more favorable A_ad, and greater likelihood for the advertised brand to be included in a consideration set over no exposure to the ad. These effects were found without significant improvement on explicit memories (i.e. recall and recognition) and click-through intention. The second experiment to assess the conditions conducive to incidental exposure examined two advertising strategies: format (animated vs. static) and placement (congruency vs. incongruency). Findings suggest that the level of congruency between an advertised product and Webpage content play significant roles in affecting consumers' responses to incidentally exposed banner ads. This paper examines the results of these two experiments before discussing the implications for the role of Web ads on brand building and directions for future research.     

Back to basics in the marketing of place: the impact of litter upon place attitudes

Abstract

Attempts to apply marketing theory and principles to place have become a legitimate area of academic and ‘real world’ practice. However, place marketing does not typically incorporate all elements of the traditional 7 Ps, focusing far too often on just one of these – promotion. Besides this rather myopic approach, place marketing suffers from an overly strategic view of the world that ignores the meaning and lived experience of places to individuals, especially residents. The purpose of this article is twofold – first, we investigate the impact of litter on place attitudes. Litter is a common, but negative, element of place, which is intimately connected to the lived experience of a place but typically far removed from the positive promotional activity favoured by place marketing efforts and the study thereof. In this sense, the article reframes place marketing from a strategic to a micro-marketing endeavour. We found that exposing respondents to litter significantly lowers their place attitudes. Our second contribution is to demonstrate the relevance of classic marketing research approaches, such as attitudinal measures, to investigate litter and its impact on place evaluations, through quasi-experimental design (with 662 respondents). Through this, we extend the range of theory and method applied in place marketing – away from controllable promotional endeavours investigated through case-studies to a more holistic and robust interpretation of place marketing, which has a measurable impact upon the places where people live and visit.     

Cultivating group-oriented travel behaviour to major events: assessing the importance of customer-perceived value,enduring event involvement and attitude towards the host destination

Abstract

Major events, such as the Olympics and Glastonbury music festival, attract tourists and result in increased consumer spending in host economies. The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the key determinants driving future intentions of travel consumers to participate in group-based travel to major events. An integrated theoretical model is empirically tested with 424 travel consumers who have had prior experience travelling in a group to a major event. The results substantiate the model showing that customer value perceptions of a past group-travel consumption experience conceptualised with multiple benefit dimensions has the largest relative effect on future intentions to engage in group-travel behaviour to major events, followed by attitude towards the host destination and enduring event involvement. The results provide managers with holistic insights into components that are used as the basis upon which group-travel consumers develop their choice behaviour which can be used to effectively cultivate more attendees to major events.