Why do public policy-makers ignore marketing and consumer research? A case study of policy-making for alcohol advertising

Public policy-makers have been noted to sometimes ignore marketing/consumer research, even when the policy issue clearly pertains to consumption markets. We embark to identify factors that may explain policy-makers’ limited attention to marketing/consumer research, especially in cases related to consumer affairs that may have public health implications. Empirically, we focus on policy-making around the advertising of alcohol products. Having been involved in this policy-making process in Finland, we elucidate the case through an introspective narrative. We find that the factors explaining policy-makers’ limited attention to marketing/consumer research range from the decision-making characteristics of policy-makers, through inconsistent definitions for key terminology, to the fear of over-generalizing certain theories of marketing/consumer research. Regarding the latter, a key issue in the present case was that public policy-makers were unconvinced about the generic marketing theory stating that in mature markets, advertising will not increase the total consumption demand of a product category.     

Do institutional investors pay attention to customer satisfaction and why?

Extant marketing, accounting, and finance research has neglected to examine the relevance of customer satisfaction information for institutional investors, despite their potential importance. This study develops and supports a framework suggesting that firms with positive changes in customer satisfaction are more attractive to transient institutional investors than to non-transient institutional investors. We also find that the impact of customer satisfaction on transient institutional investor holdings is contingent upon firm intangible asset intensity, product-market demand uncertainty, and financial market volatility. In addition, transient institutional investor holdings at least partially mediate the effects of changes in customer satisfaction on firm abnormal return and idiosyncratic risk. Thus, transient institutional investor investments represent a mechanism through which customer satisfaction affects firm value.     

Naturally designed for masculinity vs. femininity? Prenatal testosterone predicts male consumers' choices of gender-imaged products

In this paper, we find that a proxy of prenatal testosterone exposure (i.e., digit ratio) is a significant predictor of preferences for products that differ in perceived masculinity vs. femininity. A more masculine (feminine) digit ratio predicts choice of products that have an increasingly masculine (feminine) image. This relationship is statistically significant for male consumers, but not for females.     

Revisiting the paradox of whether retail buyers behave more like consumers or industrial purchasers: the case of price discounts

Marketing Letters - A long-lasting debate in marketing literature is whether retail buyers who purchase consumer products behave like consumers or like industrial purchasing managers. We address...     

Struggles in organizational attempts to adopt new branding logics: the case of a marketizing university

Recent research underlines that strong branded identities are created through co-creational processes in which multiple stakeholders are actively involved and brand identities are matched with cultural, political, and economic forces in society. However, there is a lack of in-depth research into how organizations attempt to adopt new branding logics. To address this research gap, we conduct a study of a university that is rebranding itself in accordance with a new market-oriented, service-dominant logic. While harmonic value co-creation between the brand and stakeholders is emphasized in an earlier literature, our study shows that attempts to adopt these logics trigger contradictory and adversarial interpretations among stakeholders about the role and identity of the focal actor vis-à-vis their own. We conclude that adopting new branding logics involves struggles and dynamics of power and resistance, which have passed unnoticed in earlier research. Resistance is not only targeted toward the brand's symbolic meanings and conducted by marginal consumer groups to enhance their own identities. Rather, it can also be targeted toward the tangible resource roles that stakeholders are expected to assume vis-à-vis the brand, and conducted by various stakeholder resistors – with the outcome of undermining and shifting the essence of the brand itself.     

Is more capability always beneficial for firm performance? Market orientation,core business process capabilities and business environment

This study examines the role of capabilities in core marketing-related business processes–product development management (PDM), supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM)–in translating a firm’s market orientation (MO) into firm performance. The study is the first to examine the interplay of all three business process capabilities simultaneously, while investigating how environmental conditions moderate their performance effects. A moderated mediation analysis of 468 product-focused firms finds that PDM and CRM process capabilities play important mediating roles, whereas SCM process capability does not mediate the relationship between MO and performance. However, the relative importance of the capabilities as mediators varies along the degree of environmental turbulence, and under certain conditions, an increase in the level of business process capability may even turn detrimental.     

The interrelationship of stock ownership and customer relationship volume: Case of a Nordic retail bank

Researchers have been increasingly interested in the fact that individuals who own stocks of publicly listed companies may also act as the same companies’ customers, buying their products and services. This article studies the relationship between an individual's stock ownership and his/her customer relationship (purchase/sales) volume. Examining a large sample of customers of a Nordic retail bank, the authors find that the proportion of high-volume customers is significantly greater among stock-owning customers than among non-stock-owning customers. Generally, it is found that there is a positive relationship between a customer's relationship volume and his/her stock ownership.