Marketing Commons^™

Twitter: Businesses Increasing Their Revenues 140 Characters At A Time, Adekemi O. Oyalabu

Honors Projects in Communication

With the consumer market becoming more competitive by the day, businesses must find innovative yet cost effective means of reaching their target markets and steadily increasing their revenues. While businesses compete with one another to remain the best, they must have a strategic market plan that differentiates their products and/or services from their competitors. In an effort to do this, many businesses have begun using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn as a means of reaching their target markets. Such sites have opened businesses to a new level of advertising where they reach consumers faster, have the …

Behavioral Lab For Conducting Experiments In Marketing And Psychology, Vishal Lala, Richard Velayo, Stephen Salbod, Weihua Niu

Cornerstone 3 Reports : Interdisciplinary Informatics

No abstract provided.

Institutional Theory And Cross-National Differences In International Market Selection For Direct Selling, Charles B. Ragland

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

This study extends international market selection (IMS) literature by using institutional theory to develop conceptual links between country level factors of market attractiveness and IMS. More specifically, this study examines the extent to which institutional theory and cross national differences can predict attractive markets for direct selling. The hypotheses were tested over a sample of 51 countries from developed, developing, and emerging economies that comprise 91 percent of the worldwide GDP. The use of a marketing channel, in this case direct selling, is unique to IMS empirical analysis as it represents multiple products and services from multiple industries. The analysis …

Higher Education Marketing To The Hispanic Student Population, Kimberly Greenwood

Honors Theses and Capstones

The Hispanic population in the United States is growing at an unprecedented rate. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the Hispanic population to make up nearly 25% of the entire United States population by the year 2050. This population growth points at a large market for products and services in the U.S., including higher education. This thesis discussion will address characteristics of the Hispanic population in the United States of America, explore the importance of a diverse student population including Hispanic students on a college or university campus, evaluate the competitiveness University of New Hampshire’s current situation with regard to Hispanic …

Developing A Marketing Plan For Hertz China, Isabel Tan Ai Wei

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this professional-paper is to develop a marketing plan for Hertz China. Hertz China is a car rental company which focused on business to business and business to customer market and only short-term rentals, of less than one year's duration. This marketing plan will thus exclude long-term or leasing arrangements and considers only cars, and excludes commercial vehicles such as vans and trucks. The marketing plan will focus on analyzing the potential consumers, product mix, price, and local competitors for such a business.

Redesigned Wine Labels And Consumer Preferences, Alison (Ali) Maddox

Agribusiness

When purchasing a bottle of wine, the first impression the consumer gets is from the wine label. In today’s competitive market, it is important that wineries understand consumer preferences and purchasing decisions when evaluating a wine bottle. This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between redesigned wine labels and consumer preferences. A survey was distributed to residents of San Luis Obispo and 194 people responded. It was found that consumers preferred the original label to the redesigned label. Respondents listed quality, good value, and varietal and the most important wine feature and unique, eye-catching, and colorful as the most …

Modern Political Marketing: An Analysis Of Tactics, And The Changing Role Of The Media, Jill Donovan

Journalism

Political marketing is evolving. Campaigns now rely on political marketing for success in elections, without the marketing tactics they employ; their messaging would not be distributed to the voting public. In many of the political marketing models and theories, however, there is a massive omission; the role of traditional media as an overwhelmingly influential factor over the voting public, which can misconstrue and negatively impact the message of the candidate. This study analyses classical marketing tactics a political marketer uses, and examines the changing environment of traditional media with the rise of social networking.

Marketing Mavens’ Fusion With Social Media, Deborah Lester, R. Keith Tudor, Dolly D. Loyd, Tyra Mitchell

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Maven behavior and its fusion with social media was a natural progression from an auspicious beginning. The acknowledgement of market influencers and their impact on consumer behavior emerged in the discipline literature during the 70’s with a study by Sheth (1971) who recognized the marketing opportunity of information disseminators. The potential publicizing influence of these brokers was investigated by Kotler and Zaltman (1976) whose findings advocated for their inclusion within a communication stratagem. Further examination produced precise demographic variables and personality traits along with the more accurate terminology of market mavens (Feick and Price, 1987) to delineate their unique dispositions. …

India’S Emerging Retail Systems: Coexistence Of Tradition And Modernity, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Ruby Roy Dholakia, Atish Chattopadhyay

College of Business Faculty Publications

India’s retailing sector is expected to remain in a transition spiral for the foreseeable future. Because of India’s unique context—in terms of history, regulation, institutions, demographics, geography, and traditions—available theories of retail evolution have limited applicability to the retail situation in India. Drawing from the literature, as well as from empirical research and practical experiences of over a decade, this article presents a conceptual frame for understanding the retail sector of India and the likely future trajectory of this sector.

A Study Of Golfers In Tennessee, Kelly Price-Rhea

ETSU Faculty Works

The purpose of this study was to investigate preferred shopping behaviors of golfers in the state of Tennessee. While much research has been done on retail shopping behavior in general, little exists regarding shopping behavior in sport retail, and more specifically golf retail. While golfer behavior has been researched in other areas such as tourism, it has not been fully researched in the sport or retail literature. Since this segment of consumer spends millions of dollars per year, this study was conducted to fill the gap in the literature regarding this unique consumer. An online survey was distributed among a …

King's Daughters Medical Center: Taking Medicine Further: How A Local Health System Strives To Bring World Class Care To A Rural Community, Nga Thi Chu, Anthony Dotson, Xiaofei Wang

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

King’s Daughters Health System is a network of companies located in Ashland, Kentucky. The leadership of King’s Daughters employs a corporate level strategy successfully by deciding to diversify their services into similar industries. They entered the retail industry by opening King’s Daughters Home Health and selling home health furnishings and equipment. By creating King’s Daughters Medial Transport, they entered the transportation industry. Insurance sale with King’s Daughters Integrated Health Insurance is another way they diversified. Externally the environment influences King’s Daughters Health System in many ways. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are the one factor that has the …

Hermes International, Phuong Tran

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Hermes International Company is the second strongest brand in luxury industry. They have spent more than 100 years to make Hermes name as famous as today. With 3,000 million euro in average revenue, Hermes has a very strong financial position and potential growth compare to other competitors. Their products are always well-designed, high quality, and fashionable. They do not make good products but extremely good ones. Hermes’ target customers are wealthy people who have high level of income and are interested in luxury items. With more than 300 stores all over the world, Hermes is working on their ways to …

Bank Of America: Is Bigger Always Better?, Marty Gillenwater

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Bank of America is the largest bank in the world for now. The case is an attempt to see how the bank got to the point where it is today. It was interesting to follow the flow from two small banks through their histories and how they became one large institution. Now, acting as the one entity, Bank of America, there are many pressing issues facing it. The firm has many internal problems before even addressing the external environment. This is not only the competitors in the market but also the environment itself. The case addresses some of them and …

The Innovative Success That Is Apple, Inc., Katherine Johnson, Yang Li, Hang Phan, Jason Singer, Hoang Trinh

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Apple, Inc. has been a successful company for years now. However, the company faces issues just like any other company. How Apple responds to these issues is in conjunction to the strengths and weaknesses of the firm. The business-level strategy of Apple also has much to do with how the company approaches various situations. The diversity and organization of the firm itself helps to address any issues that may arise. Competing in high level competitive industries also requires Apple Inc. changing day by day in order to overcome its competitors.

Infomercial: A Marketing Odyssey, Bligh Macdonald

Undergraduate Review

Few forms of media are so derided as the infomercial. It seems to ooze tackiness and low production standards, coupled with shameless pandering and questionable selling points. Still, the infomercial, or “direct-response” commercial, can be an astoundingly effective selling tool. In this age of ubiquitous mass media, infomercials for products such as the “Snuggie” and the “Shake Weight” have used their inherent “butt-of-joke” qualities to make millions and to attain cultural icon status. For this project, I researched the infomercial as a genre in an attempt to explain its success and rhetorical appeal. I then applied my analysis to the …

A Study Of Visual Puffery In Fragrance Advertising: Is The Message Sent Stronger Than The Actual Scent?, Mark Toncar, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper investigates visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects’ expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach - By means of a semiotic analysis we capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and we supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare …

Finanzkapital And Consumers: How Financialization Shaped Twentieth Century Marketing, Nikhilesh Dholakia

College of Business Faculty Publications

Purpose – By tracing the history of the links of financialization to consumer behaviors and marketer actions in the twentieth century, this paper aims to show that consumer market phenomena are often shaped by the imperatives of finance.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs selective historical overviews, mainly focusing on the USA, of four tranches of the past century: the run up to the Great Depression; from post-Depression to the Second World War; the post-Second World War Bretton Woods system and its collapse in the 1970s; and the increasingly risk-charged last three post-Bretton Woods decades of the twentieth century.

Findings – …

Price Dispersion In The Airline Industry: A Conceptual Framework And Empirical Analysis, Edward D. Gailey, Ashutosh Dixit, Thomas W. Whipple, Rajshekar G. Javalgi

Business Faculty Publications

Many businesses compete in multiple markets which can cause businesses to temper their price adjustments, affecting price dispersion. The authors propose a framework based on major characteristics of competition and market structure which influence price dispersion. The focus of this study is the U.S. airline industry analyzing data from 5,974 city pair routes. The results of this empirical analysis show that multi-market contact and the interaction of market concentration with multi-market contact have considerable effects on price dispersion. An understanding of these effects provides valuable insights for developing pricing strategies and extending the stream of research on price dispersion.

Fair Trade, Marketing And Consumer Behaviour, Brigit Derler, Vicky O'Rourke, Simon Stephens

Irish Business Journal

This paper examines different aspects of fair trade marketing. Firstly, secondary research examines the development, advantages and challenges of fair trade. Secondly, primary research explores consumer buying behaviour in Ireland and Austria in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) market. Thirdly, the attitudes of consumers towards mainstreaming and clean-washing are explored. Phase one of the data collection involved one hundred and twenty consumer surveys. In phase two exploratory research using mixed modes collected data from nine suppliers of fair trade FMCGs. The findings suggest that the effects of mainstreaming are perceived to be predominantly positive. The research findings also suggest …

Consumer Xenocentrism And Consumer Cosmopolitanism: The De-Velopment And Validation Of Scales Of Constructs Influencing Attitudes Towards Foreign Product Consumption, Steven James Lawrence

Wayne State University Dissertations

Like many other attributes, consumers exhibit varying degrees of preference with regard to foreign and domestic products. Some consumers have preferences for domestic products while other, seemingly similar, consumers prefer the foreign counterpart. Product quality differences aside, we aim to investigate the attitudinal constructs behind the varying preferences among consumers as they relate to foreign and domestic products.

The author created two new scales for the measurement of the consumer xenocentrism and consumer cosmopolitanism constructs. The consumer xenocentrism scale is intended to measure consumers' favorable orientations to products from outside their membership group. The consumer cosmopolitanism scale is designed to …

American Well: A Viral Solution, Rebecca Browning, Rodrigo Camargo, Thaisa Camargo, Basma Memon, Gary Salyers, Brent Spencer

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The case presents an overall look at American Well, its position within the telehealth market, and a look at the market and market affecting factors. The following analysis will be conducted using the information presented in the case and will identify strengths, weakness, strategies and provide discussions of special topics.

Diy Pr: How Independent Music Artists Use Online Social Networks For Public Relations Purposes, Martina Lawless

Theses

Significance of the study: Independent musicians are a huge part of the Irish music industry and yet they are the part that do not have the backing of a record label. This means independent musicians need to look at cheap or even free ways to promote themselves to existing fans and potential new fans. With the emergence of social networks musicians both signed and independent have the tools necessary to engage in a new form DIY PR. The purpose of this study is to look at the different ways that social networks have helped musicians in recent years, but also …

How Do Organisations Engage In Marketing Strategy Making? A Problemistic Search Perspective, Sarah Browne, Katrina Lawlor, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Laura Cuddihy

Conference papers

Despite the importance of marketing strategy making (MSM) we understand little of how strategy making actually occurs within organisations. Departing from the common focus - on the tools and techniques of strategy– we apply a strategy as practice (SAP) lens to our exploration of MSM. We adopt a problemistic search perspective and utilise an in-depth case study to explore individual’s interactions in developing strategic marketing initiatives. We uncover a three-stage pattern in solution search within MSM; identification of the problem situation and postponing response, to problem recognition and acceptance, to a collective problem solving stage, which we label pre implementation …

Developing A Pricing Strategy For The Los Angeles Dodgers, Denise Linda Parris, Joris Drayer, Stephen L. Shapiro

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

In 2011, the Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium averaged 36,236 fans per game, dropping from 43,979 in 2010 and 46,440 in 2009, an overall loss of about 10,000 fans per game in just two years. In 2011, The Dodgers' attendance ranking fell from first to eleventh in Major League Baseball (MLB), which amounted to a loss of over 800,000 tickets sold per year, as well as the resulting revenue from concessions and parking. Despite the Dodgers' long and storied history, ticket demand had been negatively influenced by inconsistent performance, mounting bad publicity surrounding owner Frank McCourt's divorce, the beating of a …

Ironic Advertising: Theory, Evidence And Practice, Ekin Pehlivan Yalcin

2012

Irony is one mechanism that advertisers use to attract consumer attention. Although ironic advertising (IA) is utilized in the mass media, it has received surprisingly little conceptual or empirical attention from marketing scholars. Perhaps one reason for this is that in marketing irony has been viewed primarily from a postmodern perspective. This is in marked contrast to psycholinguists where the phenomenon is approached from a more ecumenical, realist point of view. This dissertation is based on the premise that a realist approach to ironic advertising would produce insights for both marketing theory and practice.

This dissertation comprises of three papers …

What Products Can Benefit From African American Advertising Appeals? The Moderating Role Of Product Involvement, Ivonne M. Torres, Cuauhtémoc Luna-Nevarez

WCBT Faculty Publications

With a significant spending power, the African American segment is one of the most lucrative, interesting, and complex targets for national and local advertisers. As this consumer segment continues to grow in importance, marketers need to focus on what types of products could benefit from African American-targeted advertising. Our research studies show African Americans respond to advertising targeted to them and their responses are moderated by ethnic identification and product involvement. Consistent with both theoretical frameworks, distinctiveness theory and ethnic identification theory, we found that identified African Americans prefer African American models especially when advertising low-involvement products.

Top 10 Law School Home Pages Of 2011, Roger Skalbeck

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For the third consecutive year, the website home pages for all ABA-accredited law schools are evaluated and ranked based on objective criteria. For 2011, law school home pages advanced in some areas. For instance, there are now thirteen sites using the HTML5 doctype, up from a single site in 2010. In addition, seventeen schools achieved a perfect score for three tests focused on website accessibility, up from eight in 2010. Nonetheless, there’s enough diversity in coding practices and content to help separate the great from the good.

For this year’s survey, twenty-four elements of each home page are assessed across …

Perceptions From Academia On The Use Of Current Marketing Metric, Shane Smith

Faculty Articles

As a great source of generating revenue to the organization, it is agreed that marketing not only drives customer's actions but also can be measured in terms of financial equity. Yet, many often view marketing as an expense rather than that of an investment. This paper looks to evaluate the common methods of measuring marketing's role within the firm. A study was performed to investigate the perceptions of marketing metrics from faculties in four major business degree disciplines. These beliefs in use today demonstrate the difficulty that marketing managers have in building credibility within their departments.

How Social Media Communities Impact Consumer Behavior, Leslie Martinka

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Social media, in particular, Facebook and Twitter, are comprised of communities typically of like-minded individuals. Through social media sites we can network with these communities and converse in ways that are sometimes difficult to do offline. But do these social media communities influence how one purchases online? Mead’s theory of symbolic interactionism describes how offline communities influence one’s actions and helps to create our cultural norms and ideologies. Using Mead’s theory as a basis for the following study, this thesis attempted to determine if Facebook and Twitter communities influence consumers’ online purchasing behaviors. Employing a Likert-like scale of 1-3, a …

Investigating The Role Of Online Social Media In Consumer-Firm Relationships, Janna Cole

Honors Theses

Regarding the role of Web 2.0 in business activities, three primary areas of interest are under discussion: (1) how Web 2.0 tools should be integrated into firms' marketing strategies, (2) how Web 2.0 tools should be used to build or retain brand equity and create value with consumers, and (3) how the participation of brands in Web 2.0 influences consumers attitudes and behaviors, if at all. There are some overlaps between these subjects, particularly involving the role of consumers in appreciating or diminishing brands' reputations, as well as information gaps to be filled by further research as these technologies continue …