Digital Commons Network^™

Constitution Of The Market Through Social Media: Dialogical Co-Production Of Medicine In A Virtual Health Community Organization, Handan Vicdan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This research explores new systems of marketing, and new roles and relationships of organizations and consumers developing in healthcare as a result of transformations occurring in technology, consumer/marketer value systems, forms of discourse and institutional roles. Inspired by observations from a Medicine 2.0 community organization, which turn social networking into a business phenomenon – PatientsLikeMe (PLM) – I explore how such systems develop and function and the institutionalizations that reconstitute roles and maintain relationships among actors in these systems through netnographic research. That is, (1) why and how patients in PLM participate in the social co-production of medical knowledge and …

Balancing Customer And Marketing Inputs To Maximize The Value Experience, Weiling Zhuang

Doctoral Dissertations

Customer co-creation has been recognized in the marketing literature as a beneficial activity for both firms and customers, however, further research is needed to more fully understand how firms and customers work together to maximize the value creations. In order to extend this area, the present study conducts two studies to empirically test how customer participation interacts with other factors to influence customer shopping experience and behavior responses.

In the experiment study, an updated typology of service context was developed to examine how customer input and service provider input along other factors to influence value co-creation outcomes. A computer stimulated …

For Whom The Consumer Retorts: Consumer Identity, Cultural Conditions, And The Ramification And Re-Integration Of The Market Through Co-Optation, Soonkwan Hong

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Co-optation theory has evolved such that the cultural friction between consumer agency and the market provides an eternal source of marketing opportunities for marketers to culturally rejuvenate their businesses. The relevant literature studying consumer identity, however, precludes docile consumers from the analyses and theorization process. Given the theoretical incompleteness, this dissertation first expounds the nature of consumer agency by studying consumer cultural conditions cultivated and entrenched since modern epoch. Consumers‘ varied levels of ability to signify and their urge for distinctiveness are two cultural conditions that can capture the quintessence of consumer agency. Second, this study delves into the possibility …

Managing An Agri-Marketing Team, Brandon Banner

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This senior project is a manager’s perspective of the creation of a marketing plan from start to finish. The project begins with the team assembly process in which fifteen students were hired to execute different parts of the marketing plan and continues all the way through the completion of the project and presentation of the marketing plan at the National Agri-Marketing Association conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The marketing plan was a product repositioning strategy for a unique variety of grape tomatoes. Through consumer research, healthy eating trends in the United States along with an increasing demand for snack foods …

Business Plan-Ryanair In The United States, Tessa Davis

Journalism

Traveling within the United States is extremely costly. Low-cost airlines such as Southwest Airlines do exist but they do not provide the prices and efficiency that Ryanair, a United Kingdom based airline, does. Traveling throughout Europe is cheap and easy, jet setting to an Italian villa, when one lives in the middle of London would be considered completely normal. The United States is an enormous country, and unfortunately airline companies and airports do not provide easy, cheap methods of flying around the country. As a student or middle-class citizen, travel throughout the United States should be accessible and viable. If …

Firm Impact Of Cal Pacific Specialty Foods Establishing A Diverse Customer Base, Anthony Luis De Alcuaz

Agribusiness

When Cal Pacific was established it was imperative to establish a diverse customer base. This study proved through empirical evidence that Cal Pacific's establishment of a new and diverse customer base, after being founded, paved the way for the vast success of the company in past years. The sales reports, balance sheets, income statements, and depth interview responses exemplify the correlation of Cal Pacific's success to its customer base. As a result of the Company having many customers, sales increases were recorded and exemplified in the sales reports. Sales increases occurred over multiple one year periods. Overall firm value has …

Determining Consumer Interest In Georgian Wines, Julie Ann Inderbitzen

Agribusiness

This study was done in order to determine if there is a demand in California for wines originating in the Eastern European Country of Georgia. A survey was used in order to collect primary data from 100 respondents in two locations. The surveys were conducted in Pleasanton, CA and in San Luis Obispo, CA and were later analyzed using surveymonkey.com Microsoft Excel 2008. The data was analyzed using chi square tests, independent t-tests as well as observed frequencies and charts. The tests were used to determine demographic data about California wine consumers and to measure their interest in wines from …

An Examination Of The Interfaces Between Operations And Advertising Strategies, Abdullahel Bari

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of three journals examining the interfaces between the marketing variable of advertising and various aspects of the operations function of the enterprise, namely, (1) production cost [Chapter 2], (2) inventory control [Chapter 3], and (3) service cost learning [Chapter 4]. The first journal identified the optimum advertising allocation policy over time in the presence of a quadratic convex/concave production cost function when the advertising response function is concave using a modified Vidale-Wolfe model. Through analytical proofs and numerical simulations, the results indicated the potential superiority of a pulsation policy in the presence of concavity in the …

Analysis Of Function Drink Brand Recognition, Natasja Kashani

Agribusiness

The beverage industry has been rapidly expanding over the last century, and currently includes a variety of smaller beverage markets. Functional Beverages have been the newest addition to the beverage industry and Function Drinks is only one of the major companies operating in this market segment. The objective of this study is to assess the current level of brand recognition for Function Drinks among college consumers. The main focus behind this research is to assist the company increase the level of consumer’s brand identification for their company and products through various forms of marketing, advertising, and promotional strategies. It is …

A Marketing Plan For An Artisan Bread Bakery, Audrey Campana

Agribusiness

This study was undertaken to determine whether there is market potential for Word-of-Mouth Bakery to expand its current operation in food retailing in Modesto and the surrounding areas. A Case Study was conducted on Panera Bread Company to use as a competitive analysis to compare Word-of-Mouth Bakery with an established nationally known artisan bread company. An expert opinion poll was also conducted to assess the market potential in supermarkets from the observations of in-store bakery managers in Modesto and the surrounding areas. A SWOT analysis was used to determine the internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats that …

A Marketing Plan For Main Street Small Animal Hospital In Templeton, Ca, Lisa Karcher

Agribusiness

A marketing plan was developed for Main Street Small Animal Hospital in Templeton, CA using client survey research. The surveys determined the possible marketing avenues to improve the current marketing status of Main Street.

A Target Profile And Positioning For An Informational Lettuce Website, Julee Dyann Evangelo

Agribusiness

This project was conducted to determine what type of content a consumer would like to see on a lettuce informational website and what will drive consumers to re-visit this informational website. A survey was used to collect the data for this project. The survey was self-administered online offered through Survey Monkey. The survey link was posted on a number of food forums, Facebook fan pages related to food, and Tanimura & Antle’s website.

The data described lettuce purchasing behavior, internet usage related to food and social networking, and demographics of potential lettuce informational website visitors. Statistical tests were used to …

Social Media As A Marketing Tool For Business Operations, Katharina Jung

Theses

The purpose of this study was to elaborate different social media tools and their benefits as well as their risk for marketers.

An increasing number of companies use social media for their purposes and Internet users spend plenty of time with social media.

The use of social media is on the rise and cannot be ignored anymore. It is more cost-effective than traditional media marketing and distribution as well as other interactive marketing. Traditional media is struggling, but there is a connection between traditional and social media, which shows that these two relate to each other and influence the overall …

The Effects Of Perceived Brand Globalness On Consumer Responses To Brand Failures, Xue Gao

Theses & Dissertations

Even big companies cannot guarantee their brands never ever fail customers. Recently the brand failures of Toyota taught us a vivid lesson that a brand takes decades to be built up but to be ruined overnight. Although, the advantages of building global brands are well recognized in literature, the superiorities of global brands in brand failure context are not yet studied. This study aims to investigate the effects of perceived brand globalness (PBG) on consumer affective and behavioral responses to brand failures. Global brands are perceived superior to local brands due to factors like higher quality perceptions and prestige feelings. …

Consumer Responses In Sales To Multiple Media Advertising Exposures : The Impact Of Synergy Based On A Study Of Project Apollo Single Source Data, Leslie Wood

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The primary focus of this dissertation is to answer the question: how does exposure to advertising affect purchasing behavior, and in particular, how does synergy resulting from exposure to advertising in multiple media influence purchasing behavior? This is a critical piece of information in the business decision process of media planning. It determines which media to include in a media plan and how to allocate a limited budget across media in order to optimize the return on investment from advertising. This question has been studied in many ways since it has been a central question for the advertising industry for …