Editorial

Citation

Wright, G. (2008), "Editorial", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 26 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/mip.2008.02026faa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 26, Issue 6

The European Marketing Academy at Brighton was a resounding success this year, so thanks to the organising team for making this forum for the exchange of marketing thinking so stimulating and so enjoyable. It was my first conference as editor and I think that this role made me see things with a fresh light. Firstly, it made me realise what a special and supporting community marketing academics can be.

Secondly, we are an international community. I know that this may seem self-evident, but again, the crucial word is community. EMAC was much more than a venue for Europeans, the marketing community world-wide was represented and the level of discussion and feedback at the sessions and outside of them was heartening. Thirdly, bringing these things together, it occurred to me that this event was about people. We talk about networking as though it is a concept, but this event was much more than a group that can be about useful contacts. It was about the sustainability of the marketing discipline and about building capacity for the future by establishing new professionals and building on the foundations of those who have spent their professional lives striving to establish and develop the future of our crucial and often mercurial discipline.

Though the opportunity to meet is sporadic, it is clearly central in the development of our thinking and mutual support. Underpinning this is the constant visibility we maintain for ourselves and the research that we undertake throughout our careers through publishing our findings and thinking in journals dedicated to marketing. Our journal set is more than simply career development and CV-building, it is a valuable means of communication and a tangible resource. As an Editor, I was very keen to hear what people thought of marketing journals and this journal in particular, and many of you were happy and eager to share your views with me. You said that this is an accessible journal, to both you and your students, this is confirmed by the impressive number of downloads that we generate, making it one of the most popular journals in the portfolio. You also said that you were impressed with the timeliness in terms of turnaround from submission to publication and the contemporary content. Finally, you said that the journal is gratifyingly useful in terms of both academic credibility and application to the practice of management. This final point is exactly what we are striving for in terms of editorial strategy and will continue to drive our editorial policy towards. Since taking on the mantle of managing the papers through the review process, I have been struck by the range of focus and geographical breadth of submissions – like EMAC, the catchment is global and marketing is covered in all its subtleties. From my perspective, what is making this role firstly possible, and secondly effective, is the quality and efficiency of the reviewers, I am deeply impressed by the cooperation and helpfulness of those asked to contribute to this central role in ensuring that we maintain the integrity and quality of the journal and appreciate all of the enthusiasm that a venue such as EMAC allowed you to express for contributing to this role. Again, an indicator that we are a community, working to develop the integrity of our discipline.

In this issue, articles cover applications of marketing, services marketing and the practice marketing management. The first two articles are about political marketing and services marketing, now both accepted as valid and crucial, but for many years in the shadow of what was seen as mainstream product marketing. Ross Brennan and Stephen Henneberg of Middlesex and Manchester, UK consider the adaptation of traditional commercial and product-based marketing, demonstrating how a concept of voter value can be used as a segmentation approach in political marketing strategy. Kamen Lee from the Chinese University of Hong Kong specialises in journalism and communication and has contributed an article on the opportunities presented by young consumers in Hong Kong, highlighting what will work and what will not in targeting environmental messages at this group. This paper highlights the hierarchy of importance of social influence, environmental concern, self-image and perceived responsibility in communicating with this segment. Ian Phau and Michael Baird, both of Curtin University in Australia contribute the first of the service papers, they have investigated how complainers and non-complainers retaliate differently to service dissatisfaction, profiling these groups demographically and psychographically and finding that complainers have a high sense of justice and are less conservative whilst there is no difference between complainers and non-complainers in terms of gender, income and education. This paper gives insight into customer retention and conversely, customer exit and suggests ways of managing these in circumstances of service dissatisfaction. Sunil Sahadev and Keyoor Purani of the University of Sheffield, UK and the Indian Institute of Management contribute to service quality with their paper on e-service quality and its consequences. The paper concludes that efficiency, fulfilment, system reliability and privacy are linked to trust and satisfaction.

Shu-pei Tsai of Shih Hsin University, Taiwan proposes a model that emphasises the strategic roles that the corporate marketing manager plays in building effective corporate identity, arguing that generally, these two roles are generally seen as operational rather than strategic and that it is important that this balance is changed. Simon Pervan and Andrea Vocino of the University of Bath in the UK and Deakin University, Australia explore how message framing is used in magazine advertisements. They found discord between previous research findings and common practice insofar that contrary to research-based recommendations, almost all advertisers rely on positive message framing. They also found that the use of attribute framing and combined attribute/goal framing is more popular than pure goal framing. This paper highlights the need for better understanding of the mechanisms of messages to lead to more effective communication.

Ling Peng and Adam Finn of Lingnan University Hong Kong and the University of Alberta examine current practice in concept testing, specifically they address the role of concept testing in new product development, concept testing designs and their effectiveness and explore what evidence product managers and marketing consultants draw on to evaluate the reliability and validity of extant approaches to concept testing.

Overall, this collection of papers represents contributions to the development and practice of marketing from researchers world-wide and with local and international collaborators, I hope you find this issue stimulating and thought-provoking.

Gill Wright