Editorial

Citation

Phau, I. (2017), "Editorial", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 474-476. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-03-2017-0051

In this third issue of 2017, the APJML presents a series of papers on social and environmental marketing, agricultural supply chain management, consumer segmentation, cross-cultural marketing, pricing, marketing research techniques and futurology in marketing. In our “Industry Spotlight” section, this issue’s paper explores the factors affecting the business success of recording studios in Indonesia.

Opening this issue is a paper on environmental and social marketing. There is an increasing interest in the health and environmental benefits to reducing one’s consumption of meat. Boqueva, Marinova and Raphaely present a unique paper on social marketing and reducing meat consumption. Their study finds that motivations behind meat consumption in Australian consumers is not entirely rational, but includes emotional, social and nutritional motivations as well. This highlights the challenge of encouraging people to eat less meat. To address this, they discuss how social marketing can be employed to engage consumers at an emotional and social level, to help “demarket” meat consumption and encourage a greater orientation towards plant-based diets. Continuing with this environmental theme, Bandara, Leckie, Lobo and Hewege take aim at the Australian organic fruit and vegetable industry, exploring the power-play in the supply chain relationship management. Surveying Australian suppliers, they examine how the relationship quality in the supply chain influences the relationship between the power bases and the success of the relationship. Their findings help highlight the dynamism in inter-firm relationships within the supply chain; and the importance for managers to effectively manage their power bases to maintain positive relationships in the supply chain.

In business, it is imperative that the target consumer is properly identified, as it can form the basis from which marketing strategies are developed. Bruwer and McCutcheon explore wine consumption dynamics from a behaviourism perspective, to inform potential marketing strategies in this space. Surveying consumers across Australia on wine consumption behaviours, they segment wine consumption behaviours across different socio-demographic variables. Through this, their study helps develop a better understanding of wine consumption in Australia, from which future marketing strategies can be developed to target these consumer segments.

Following this, are a series of papers on cross-cultural marketing, beginning with a study by Shu and Strombeck on how self-image congruence affects the consumer ethnocentrism and local brand preferences. Conducted across three Asian countries, their study reveals how variances in ethnocentrism and perceived self-image result in differing perceptions of local and global brands. Their findings reveal that consumer ethnocentrism does not effectively predict preferences for local brands, with self-image congruence playing a greater role. This gives insight into potential identity-based strategies for the marketing and promotion of products to different consumers. Next, we draw focus on ethical consumption behaviours in consumers in Asian culture. Yen, Wang and Yang draw attention to ethnic Chinese consumers and their behaviours towards fair trade products. Surveying consumers in Taiwan, their study examines how a collectivistic mindset influences consumers’ ethical consumption; and how their moral identity influences this relationship. Their findings develop a greater understanding of how the moral identity influences the relationship between collectivistic mindset and ethical consumption behaviours towards fair trade products. This can help firms develop better marketing strategies that incorporate moralistic perspectives to help encourage the purchase of fair trade products among ethnic Chinese consumers.

In recent years, the “Korean Wave” has gained significant traction among Asian consumers. This has led to the rise in the consumption of Korean beauty products. Thus, Moslehpour, Wong, Pham and K. Aulia seek to shed light on this phenomenon with a paper on Taiwanese consumers’ purchase behaviour towards Korean beauty products. Surveying Taiwanese consumers, their study reveals that price perceptions, country-of-origin and most importantly, consumer word-of-mouth, play a significant role in consumers’ repurchase intentions towards Korean beauty products. These findings help develop a better understanding the psychology of Taiwanese consumers, which marketers of Korean beauty products can use to better position their offerings to encourage repurchases. Continuing with country image, Gorostidi-Martinez, Xu and Zhao present a cross-cultural consumer study on product-country image, examining Spanish consumers’ perceptions of Chinese products. Adapting the product-country image scale to their study, they note that Spanish consumers are not yet familiar with China or Chinese brands. This provides an opportunity for Chinese policymakers and firms to leverage this lack of familiarity, and try to improve the product-country image perceptions of Spanish consumers.

Following this, Abdul-Latif and Abdul-Talib present an interesting paper on consumer racism. Their study adapts the consumer racism scale to a multi-cultural context, through the introduction of several modifications. Conducted with Malaysian consumers, their study generates new items that help improve the scale’s accuracy within the Malaysian context. The results of this study could help improve cross-cultural consumer research in this area, and help both researchers and businesses alike, develop a more in-depth understanding of consumer racism in a consumption context.

Pricing, while challenging to determine, is an important aspect of marketing. Kareem Abdul seeks to develop greater insight on pricing strategy with a paper on how consumers perceive post-purchase price reductions and their effect on brand equity. Surveying Indian consumers, the findings highlight how post-purchase price reductions can results in consumers perceiving a level of unfairness which negatively affects brand equity. These findings provide insight on how brand managers can help alleviate these negative effects through appropriate management and timing of their price reductions.

The conduct of research helps to improve the collective knowledge of various subjects; and in this pursuit of knowledge, there are always areas for improvement. To this end, Parvin, Wang and Udin present a paper that assesses the effectiveness of two research models, in the understanding of consumer behaviour in a service environment – Australian restaurant patrons. Their paper provides researchers with insight on the method and approach to empirically evaluating the effectiveness of different research models. In addition, through this comparison, their study helps develop a clearer understanding of how businesses may improve their restaurant environment to improve the customer experience.

Anticipating how consumers will react to a brand’s new product launches is a constant challenge for researchers and brand managers alike. To this end, Haryanto, Kashif, Moutinho and Pasharibu explore a future anticipation paradigm for brand building. A digital ethnographic study was conducted to explore the consumers’ future anticipation behaviour. Their findings revealed much about the consumer perceptions of firms’ attempts at future anticipation. One of which is that most consumers appreciate the firms’ efforts at future anticipation, which has positive knock on effects on consumer brand perceptions. This, among other findings have provide significant insights to help brand managers better understand their customers.

Rounding off this issue, is our “Industry Spotlight” paper by Saragih, on the factors that influence the success of recording studios in Indonesia. Through a triangulation approach, this qualitative study derives three critical factors for the success of recording studio businesses in Indonesia – technical skills, communication skills and servicescape management. The findings from this study present a unique insight into the recording industry in Indonesia, and help illustrate some of the practical strategies and factors that managers should consider when promoting and managing their business.

Thank you for your continued support for the APJML. I hope this issue has provided interesting perspectives and unique insights to stimulate future research. I thank the reviewers and EAB for their timely reviews and contribution to the APJML; and the authors for submitting manuscripts of exceptional calibre.