Editorial

Citation

Wright, G. (2008), "Editorial", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 26 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/mip.2008.02026gaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume 26, Issue 7

It is impossible to pick up a newspaper at the moment without reading about depressions – be it the economy or the weather. House markets and money markets are in the doldrums, consumers are guarding their cash and credit is becoming a scarce commodity. So what does that mean for marketers and for Marketing Intelligence & Planning? It means that we are more important than ever. In an environment of budget cuts, we need to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, we need clear cases for the interpretation of marketing performance. We need to be truly customer focused, to value our existing customers and by consolidating their loyalty, we will take them with us through difficult times. With less discretionary spend, positive word of mouth is something to be fostered and influencers need to be targeted. To target customers more effectively, we need to know how they are adapting to a downturn and coverage of it. In a time of scarce resources, we need to target what we have effectively and we need to fight for resources to keep marketing at the forefront of strategy. We need to demonstrate that marketing works. This journal contributes to that agenda, it publishes timely evidence of what works in marketing.

In this issue the first paper presents a case in point. It concerns older consumers and their patterns of expenditure.

Philip Kitchen (University of Hull, UK0, Fon Sim Ong (U of Malaya, Malaysia) and Ata Jama of University of Utah, USA have used a large sample of older consumers to show that their spending is largely centred on the necessities of life and that, having relatively little disposable income, their decisions are made carefully. This is a growing segment world-wide and so marketing professionals need to consider their targeting carefully. This is followed by a paper by Sally Harridge-March of Oxford Brookes UK and Nicolas Virtsonis of Webmart UK Research, on another key targeting issue, this time focusing on business-to-business challenges. In this context, customer loyalty is a key issue in times of economic hardship. In this paper, content analysis is used to develop a model which demonstrates how brand positioning elements are used in on-line communication. This research is useful in guiding managers on how to align their messages with the medium that delivers them, thus leading to consistent and effective communications. Hernan Riquelme of Kuwait Maastricht Business School and Rosa Rios of the Australian College of Kuwait continue the e-marketing theme considering the concept of brand equity for on-line organisations. They demonstrate that the sense of value that customers experience with an on-line company along with trust in a brand and brand awareness all contribute to overall brand loyalty. They find that brand loyalty is by far the most important factor in creating brand equity. Again, this demonstrates the importance of developing customer relationships in a highly competitive environment.

In their paper on viral marketing Danilo Cruz of Honda – Marketing and Chris Fill of University of Portsmouth, UK identify the key criteria that categorise two forms of viral marketing: random and placed virals. Furthermore, they construct a framework that identifies three key objectives and related performance criteria. That they identify financial criteria and return on investment as key issues highlights the increasing need to demonstrate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Deirdre O’Loughlin of Limerick, Ireland and Mary Loonam of Amarach highlight the need to manage quality. Their research explores the emergence of self-service banking technology (SSBT) and investigates customers’ perceptions of Internet banking self-service. They have found some commonality with traditional service quality and e-banking service quality dimensions, but due to the remote form of the online encounter, many traditional service quality attributes were found to be redundant and instead e-dimensions such as web usability, trust, access and information quality service recovery and flexibility emerged as important to e-banking service provision. Process quality emerges as a key factor. The paper helps our understanding of what enhances current financial services quality and delivery. Such technology based services highlight the challenge of managing a service without people to contribute to the inseparability feature of service.

Jennifer Rowley of Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and Catrin Williams of Bangor Business School, UK contribute a paper on the impact of brand sponsorship at music festivals. They present evidence to suggest that brand sponsorship at music festivals has an impact on brand recall, awareness and attitude to the brand, but little evidence of impact on brand use. They found that values associated with sponsoring brands are largely positive though they also show that there are concerns about the consequences of sponsorship of alcohol brands. This research highlights the need to be realistic about the impact and value of creating awareness and consumption. Linus Osuagwu of the Covenant University, Nigeria establishes a framework for political marketing. This paper considers the many conceptualizations, dimensions, and practice of political marketing, suggesting that it may be coloured by environmental issues, especially in developing economies with weak democratic infrastructure. This paper represents value to those interested in influencing public opinion in times when governments are perceived to have an especially sensitive and direct impact on the quality of life of voters.

All of the papers in this issue have direct associations with the need to understand and evaluate marketing strategy and management in constrained economic times and thus the need for rigorous research based recommendations on how to achieve this. This collection of papers show that it is in the enhanced competitive environment of an economic downturn that marketing can come into its own and organisations must look towards careful planning and evaluating marketing activity rather than knee-jerking to budget and cost cuts.

Gill Wright