Marketing Commons^™

Marketing Strategies For Profitability In Small Independent Restaurants, Wanda Y. Jenkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The restaurant industry is the second largest employer in the United States; however, only 33% of restaurants are successful during the first 3 years of operation. The purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to determine what marketing strategies small independent restaurant owners need for profitability. Aaker's brand equity model was the conceptual framework used to ground this study. Using a purposeful criterion sampling technique and semistructured interviews, 12 individuals (2 managers and 2 employees from 3 restaurants in Philadelphia) participated in the study. Data collected from interviews and archival business records were analyzed to generate themes, also allowing …

Folgers: The New Era Of Coffee, Anthony J. Jakubowski, Danielle Hickman, Annie Pang, Adrianna Hartman, Alex Naragon

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The primary purpose of this paper is to discuss the repositioning of the Folgers brand through a new and improved Brand Pyramid and two strategic recommendations. In order to come to these conclusions, the group utilized secondary research to gain a background on the coffee industry as a whole, the acquisition of the Folgers brand by Smucker’s, the competition relative to Folgers in the coffee market, a social media analysis focusing on the competitors, and finally research regarding the Millennial generation. The conclusions from this secondary research led to the methodology used in order to come up with the new …

Small Seasonal Business Strategies To Increase Profits Through Community Collaboration, Kevin B. Gibbons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Seasonal small business owners (e.g., boating and golf industries), primarily within the upper and Midwestern United States, face challenges for profit and growth because of a brief business potential year and limited time to establish a reliable and committed customer base. The purpose of this case study was to explore strategies that seasonal small business owners in Oakland County, Michigan may use to collaborate with local associations and charitable organizations to increase profits. Stakeholder theory served as the conceptual framework for this study. A purposive sample of 4 successful small seasonal business owners in Oakland County, Michigan participated in face-to-face …

Profitability And The Financial Strategies Of Women-Owned Small Businesses, Kellie J. Emrich

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The fastest growing segment of business development in the United States comes from small business start-ups, with 42% of these businesses being women owned. Women-owned businesses are annually 25% less profitable when compared to the average small business in the United States. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the purpose of this single exploratory case study was to investigate how women small business owners and their employees use financial strategies to increase the profitability of their businesses. Data came from semistructured interviews with 1 woman business owner and 5 business consultants who work for the women-owned small business. The …

Beneath The Kiss: Unearthing The Ideological Underpinnings Of Kay Jewelers Advertisements, Chelsea Nedlyn Hill

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Advertising is a frequently used influential and persuasive means of communication, such as Kay Jewelers, a corporation whose advertising methods have been superficially appealing to a female audience. However, this study sought to investigate the ideological underpinnings associated with Kay Jewelers advertisements, employing an ideological criticism to argue through feminist theory that Kay Jewelers utilizes key elements of heteronormative love as a means to persuade and influence men to purchase their jewelry products. Through this underpinning of heteronormative romance, Kay Jewelers emphasizes the notion that an artifact, like a piece of jewelry, is necessary in order to properly express …

Deception In Cosmetics Advertising: Examining Cosmetics Advertising Claims In Fashion Magazine Ads / 化妆品广告中的欺骗:分析时尚杂志广告中的化妆品广告, Jie G. Fowler, Timothy H. Reisenwitz, Les Carlson

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

The FDA has only focused upon the physical safety of cosmetics and has ignored the significant reasonability of advertising claims. As such, the present article is intended to examine/ascertain the extent to which cosmetics claims contain deceptive content in fashion ads. Through a content analysis, the study reported herein revealed that cosmetics claims were not evenly distributed. To that end, the preponderance of the claims appeared to be described primarily by three categories (scientific, performance and subjective). The results also showed that more cosmetics claims were classified as deceptive than were deemed as acceptable. Close examination of these trends revealed …

Small Business Use Of Internet Marketing: Findings From Case Studies, Maya Demishkevich

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Internet marketing is critical for meeting changing consumer needs and staying competitive in the business environment. Small business owners need strategies on how to use Internet marketing to promote their products or services. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how 5 small business owners in Maryland developed and implemented an online marketing strategy. Participants were recruited for their roles as the chief decision maker of their business; additional prerequisites for their participation were that they used Internet marketing, represented different industries, and had fewer than 20 employees. Data came from semi-structured interviews with the small business …

Employee Conduct When Administering Government Contracts In The Defense Logistics Agency, Sandra Genevieve Haynes-Michaels

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Justice reported cases of government contracting employees accepting bribes totaling over $540 million within a 6-year period. The purpose of this case study was to explore the perceptions of government contracting managers regarding the knowledge needed to mitigate employees' unethical behaviors when administering government contracts. Previous studies on government contracting employees' unethical behaviors focused on employees' behaviors, but lacked data concerning managers' roles in mitigating employees' unethical behaviors. The study's conceptual framework was stakeholder theory. The data were gathered through semistructured interviews conducted with 21 government contracting managers in the …

Managing Negative Comments Posted On Social Media, Darci Wagner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Consumers use social media to share their service experiences, positive and negative. Some organizations lack strategies to respond to the negative comments, which can inhibit service recovery and harm the success of the organization. The purpose of this case study was to explore strategies used by social media managers to manage negative comments posted on social media sites. The study's conceptual framework was social exchange theory. Participants in Central Ohio were recruited through e-mail. Data were gathered by observing 2 social media marketers manage social media and by interviewing social media managers. Secondary data from the organization displayed the engagement …

Perspectives On Why The Glass Ceiling Still Exists For Women In Advertising And Media And Tools To Help Shatter It, Olivia Hottle Mossman

Honors Program Theses

This ethnographic study provides current insights into the barriers women experience as they seek executive positions in the media and advertising industries—careers largely held by men. Interviews with women who currently or have previously held management roles in media and advertising companies are analyzed and presented. The knowledge gained from these interviews raises awareness of the lack of women’s voices on the media channels that influence a society’s perception of what is socially and culturally acceptable. This research also counteracts an absence of recent research regarding this topic. As the study evolved, it looked more at the relationships between women …

Marketing Strategies Of Mobile Game Application Entrepreneurs, Talaya Waller

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mobile game application entrepreneurs can offer many benefits to the U.S. economy; however, 80% of the entrepreneurs in this study stated that marketing their mobile applications was a major business challenge. Successful strategies that entrepreneurs have used to overcome their mobile game application marketing challenges may be beneficial to other entrepreneurs. Based on Schumpeter's theory of economic development and new value creation of technological innovation, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the strategies that entrepreneurs have used to market their mobile game application development businesses successfully. Twenty mobile game application entrepreneurs from northern California, who successfully sustained …

Marketing Strategies To Increase Profits From Retailing Fair Trade Coffee, Emily Christine Knowles

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low consumer loyalty threatens the sustainability of the fair trade (FT) coffee market and corporate social responsibility investment. To provide business owners with strategies and decision-making processes to market FT coffee products successfully in the United States, this phenomenological study explored the lived experiences, perceptions, and insights of 20 FT coffee marketing managers. Planned behavior theory served as the conceptual framework. Face-to-face or Skype interviews were conducted with each of the 20 purposefully sampled FT coffee marketing managers. The data from these interviews were analyzed using Moustakas' modified van Kaam method and qualitative analytic software to collect, group, reduce, validate, …

Social Media Strategies Used In Marketing Custom Bicycle Framebuilding Companies, Angela Au

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Social media is a cost-effective marketing tool, and in a 2014 survey, 75% of small business owners reported that they used social media to market. However, many of these businesses merely set up social media profiles and do not use social media to its full potential. Microenterprise owners face barriers such as lack of time, financial resources, and marketing knowledge, preventing them from adopting social media as a marketing tool. This multiple case study explored what strategies microenterprise owners in the artisan economy need to market using social media. Data were collected from 5 custom bicycle framebuilders in a Southwestern …

Case Study: Sexism In Advertising And Airlines, Tamilla Curtis, Anke Arnaud Ph.D., Blaise Waguespack

Publications

This case study outlines an ethical dilemma faced by a young female student who is planning to buy airline tickets. Her purchase decision is influenced by cost and advertising strategies. The case discusses advertising ethics, ethical moral philosophies, including teleology and deontology, and sexist advertising with examples from the airline industry. This case will be beneficial for marketing students to discuss the topic of advertising ethics, and for business students to discuss the topic of organizational ethics. Students enrolling in aviation related classes will also benefit from this case. The teaching notes for instructors are available upon request.

Acknowledgements/Image Credits, Molly Lynde-Recchia

Transference

No abstract provided.

Let Them Make Art: Why Unified Arts Festivals Are Beneficial For Independent Artists, Anton Gress

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Artistic disciplines typically have two markets: corporate, and independent (mainstream and underground, if you will). The corporate market accounts for a small fraction of all artists and reaches the largest audience, while the independent market accounts for the vast majority of working artists, yet remains niche. The issue is marketing. Even the most successful independent artists cannot match the selling power of large companies. This project seeks to illustrate the potential of unified arts festivals to facilitate greater audience exposure for independent artists, and how this may benefit the artistic community.

The arts communities at Chapman University have a similar …

Maximizing Sharability And Persuasiveness On Web 2.0, Yuhua (Jake) Liang, Christina Lopez, Tim Seavey, Shelby Stanton

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Online marketing efforts usually focus on the persuasiveness or sharability of a message. However, research has not established where these two concepts overlap. The current study explores this overlap. Web 2.0 platforms facilitate the delivery of different content and statistics to convey the persuasiveness and the sharability. An original experiment varied message quality (high argument strength, direct message, and emotional message) and web cues (i.e., ratio of views, likes, and shares) to signal self-presentation (favorable and unfavorable). Prospective participants will view mock webpages for internet news and donation collection, followed by measures of the content persuasiveness and sharability.

Leveraging Market-Based Assets To De-Risk The Firm's Operations, Rajendra Kumar Srivastava

Asian Management Insights

In times of uncertainty and volatility,the active management of marketbasedassets, such as brands andchannel relationships, take on a newsignificance in managing risk.

Salvaging Print: Letterhead In Post-Industrial Urban America, Nancy Sharon Collins

The Mid-America Print Council Conference

This panel will explore the link between today’s small press movement and the formal aspects of commercial printing during the American 20th century. Panelists include Christine Medley , Philip Gattuso, and Nancy Bernardo.

Using as its primary example letterhead from defunct companies in Detroit, and secondarily, specimens of business and legal letterhead from other urban centers of the industrial United States, this panel will examine and discuss: What did letterhead represent to 20th century printers in local markets such as Detroit? What is the significance of printed letterhead, and stationery, to the art of small press printing in post-industrial cities …

Branding Your Company, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

You need to understand what your brand stands for before building it

Exploring The Relationship Between Online Search And Offline Sales For Better "Nowcasting", Sandeep R. Chandukala, Jeffrey P. Dotson, Qing Liu, Stephan Conrady

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the conditions that motivate individuals to buy, sell, search, and post on the Internet are diverse, the information generated as a byproduct of these activities has the potential to help marketers develop a better understanding of consumer and firm behavior. In this paper, we utilize online product search data to build a model that links sales to marketing mix activity. The objectives of this research are threefold: first, to incorporate secondary data collected from online sources into a model of demand, thus improving our ability to forecast sales; second, to develop a better understanding of the role of marketing …

The Relationship Between Social Media Use And Consumer Brand Engagement, Joshua Stein

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The use of social media by businesses as a communication tool has grown rapidly in recent years. Despite this rapid adoption, little is known about the use of social media among consumers and its effect on brand behavior. This research study aims to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between social media use and consumer brand engagement. To conduct this research, an on-line survey was administered through Survey Monkey to 60 undergraduates ranging in age from 18-24 through a snowball method. Survey questions included: extent of social media use, willingness to engage with brands, views on online vs. offline …

Finding Answers In Digital Media Research, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

It is a different ball game altogether when measuring the effectiveness of an online advertisement than that of print and broadcast

Accessibility Of Tourism Websites: Attitudes And Behaviors, Filza Armadita

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While developed countries continue to shape an industry that has somehow become an integral part of the society, it only seems fair that the industry should provide equal access for every member of the society, recouping members of the market that is excluded without notice. The basic tier of service in the web interface is to provide information, before any booking systems and online purchasing (Siegel, 1997). In the travel industry, this basic tier is achieved in many different travel businesses, but consistently in destination marketing websites that solely promotes a tourism destination through delivering information about the specific location. …

A Conceptualization And Empirical Examination Of The Effects Of Marketing Alignment On Franchising Relationships, Joseph Matthes

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Franchising is a widely utilized business format that continues to grow in popularity both domestically and abroad. Through the recruitment of franchisees as agents, franchisors are able to access additional resources and rapidly expand their networks. The marketing relationship between franchising partners presents unique opportunities and challenges due to this captive and codependent channel structure. In order to fill a gap in the literature and better understand franchisee-franchisor relationships, the author conceptualizes marketing alignment as being comprised of both agreement and cooperation across the dimensions of strategies, operations, and values. A conceptual model is developed that addresses the following research …

An Empirical Examination Of The Moderators Of Direct Versus Indirect Comparative Advertising, Chun-Kai Hsu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This research examines the relative effectiveness of different kinds of comparative advertising. The effects of direct and indirect advertising are discussed and empirically tested. Extant research focuses on the differential effects of comparative and non-comparative advertising. However, with the growing popularity of comparative advertising in recent years, it becomes crucial to examine different kinds of comparative advertisements more closely to provide guidelines to marketing managers in the application of comparative advertising. In the marketing literature, very little has been known about how advertising-specific moderators may influence the effectiveness of direct and indirect comparative advertising. In this dissertation, different advertising-specific moderators …

Homeostasis-Driven Responses To Consumer Sensations, Rhonda Hadi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research examines the effect of experienced physical temperature on an individual's decision-making process. Reliance on emotions can function as a warming process and reliance on cognitions can function as a cooling process, hence individuals are nonconsciously induced to alter their decision-making style according to their thermoregulatory objectives. My first two studies support a thermoregulatory account by demonstrating that the mere use of cognitive versus affective processing leads to both self-reported and objective changes in body temperature, and that the adoption of a compensatory pathway can indeed aid in providing temperature-related comfort. My last three studies demonstrate that individuals adopt …

Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve: The Effects Of Conspicuous Compassion On Identity Signaling And Charitable Behavior, Zoe Rogers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Conspicuous compassion is one type of prosocial behavior that involves the purchase and wearing of merchandise that supports a cause. This research considers the effects that conspicuous compassion has on signaling to others and signaling to the self and the factors that influence these types of signaling. This research shows that self-signaling is influenced more by whether the merchandise supported (vs. did not support) a cause, while other-signaling is more influenced by the public (vs. private) dimension of the message on the merchandise. This research also examines a two-path model of the effects of conspicuous compassion on subsequent charitable behavior, …

Get Schooled: A Visual Social Semiotic Analysis Of Target's Branding Using Instagram, Chelsea Bevins

Masters Theses

With new technology arising, brands must be able to adapt to them. This thesis will break down brand management, using David Aaker's framework, of the Target Corporation to see if they are using modern resource, Instagram effectively. This thesis will also look at how the theory of visual social semiotics, applied to communications, is used to decipher intended meaning. Brand management embodies a company and people are driven by what a brand portrays. People are driven by values, emotions and quality within a brand. People associate products with memories, celebrities, attributes and symbols. Brands are more than just a name. …

Family-Friendly Las Vegas: An Analysis Of Time And Space, Diana Tracy Cohen

Occasional Papers

This paper explores the rise and fall of the “family-friendly” Las Vegas marketing era. Through analysis of casino advertisements, internal and external building infrastructure, and qualitative in-depth interviews with industry insiders, this work investigates the city’s reinvention of the early 1990s. Key factors that set the stage for the emergence of targeted family marketing are identified, addressing why this advertising approach ultimately did not sustain. Unique marketing case studies are identified throughout.