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Aims to expand the traditional view of marketing to include a wider network of actors, all of which have a role to play in executing transactions. Measurement has traditionally been a stumbling‐block: while the importance of actors other than those forming the traditional dyad is accepted, it has not been easy to determine empirically what it is that the different partners want from the relationship. In this paper we present a possible way forward. The preliminary work presented here is based on the affinity credit card market which has three clear partners in a triad: the bank, the affinity group itself, and the customers that elect to make use of the card. We present some early results that indicate the extent to which these three partners do, and do not, have an overlapping understanding of each other’s needs.

As cause‐related marketing (CRM) is usually subsumed under corporate social responsibility (CSR), in practice CSR and CRM can serve as different public relations tools. This study aims to compare the effect of CRS and CRM on customer attitude.

In order to overcome various measurement problems, an experiment is conducted in a country characterized by a significant diversity of attitudes towards a cause.

The result indicates that both CSR and CRM have similar positive effects on customers' attitudes. However, while CRM might be more cost‐efficient, its positive effect is limited to customers with high cause affinity. In contrast, CRM has a negative effect on customers with low cause affinity, or who oppose the cause. A major finding is that CRM can compensate for negative CSR to a high degree in the cause affinity segment of the market. Therefore, a high degree of cause specificity of CSR might only be preferable if the market is characterized by broad cause affinity, or if a firm is facing negative public sentiment caused, for instance, by a product harm crisis.

The paper conceptualizes the difference between the cause‐unspecific and cause‐specific dimension of CSR and highlights the importance of cause affinity in cause‐specific CSR.

The credit card industry in the UK has a growing number of affinity cards, some of which are specifically aimed at the alumni of universities. Discusses the evolution of the relationship between the university alumni officers and the credit card issuers responsible for the alumni affinity cards. Bases the research on a five‐phase model of relationship formation and describes how the alumni officers perceive their relationship with their affinity card issuers through the phases of awareness, exploration, expansion, commitment and dissolution. Concludes that the entry of the affinity card issuer potentially dilutes the strength of the relationship between the alumni and their university, as the card issuer seeks to build a direct relationship with the alumni affinity cardholders. Alumni officers and others responsible for initiating affinity credit card agreements, therefore, need to be aware of both the benefits and costs of establishing and maintaining relationships with affinity credit card issuers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of country affinity, ethnocentrism and product quality judgment on self-brand connection regarding both domestic and foreign brands.

The study involved an online experiment and was conducted using online questionnaires. Sampling was done among undergraduate students of a Southwestern university in the US. The data was analyzed using SEM with PLS.

The results showed, for foreign brands, consumer self-brand connection increased through the effect of country affinity and product quality judgment. For domestic brands, self-brand connection was influenced by ethnocentrism (and not country affinity or product quality judgment).

This study only focused on one industry (i.e. Television industry), and the authors recommend future studies examine a broader range of industries. Moreover, other country related constructs such as national identity need to be examined in future studies.

Marketers focusing on global branding and international marketing can benefit from the findings of this paper by understanding the routes through which consumers build self-brand connections in foreign vs domestic settings. Additionally, marketers can, more effectively, invest their resources by focusing on the factors that can be influential (i.e. ethnocentrism for domestic brands vs country affinity and product judgment for foreign brands).

This study examines the effect of country affinity, ethnocentrism and product quality judgment for consumers' domestic country as well as a foreign country. Moreover, this study contributes toward the global branding literature by incorporating self-brand connection as a behavioral outcome.

A major challenge facing Welsh speciality Small and Medium‐sized Agri‐food Enterprises (SMAFEs) is how to sustain growth in a global market. This can be enhanced through e‐commerce and the marketing of product through the Internet to an international audience. Recent research carried out by the Welsh Enterprise Institute (WEI) found that there may only be 10 per cent of Welsh SMAFEs using the Internet for this purpose. The challenge, therefore, is how to enable SMAFEs to market effectively their products; to put these small firms not only in contact with local markets but also international markets; to ensure a range of “authentic” food products is available to Welsh communities in other countries and those people with affinity to “all things Welsh”; and to establish channels that facilitate repeat purchase by visitors to Wales. This challenge can be responded to by enabling SMAFEs to gain access to the Internet and to be confidence in its use, to develop “user friendly” Web sites, to link to overseas markets through the Internet, and to establish a long‐term customer base. The WEI has undertaken a two stage survey to measure SMAFE usage of e‐mail and the Internet in Wales. The buying habits of Welsh Affinity Groups (WAGs) on the Internet in the USA, Canada and other countries has also been studied and it is planned to establish network links between the SMAFEs and the WAGs, and communities overseas. This paper describes the survey of SMAFEs in Wales and reports on the analysis of the findings together with recommendations for the establishment of a comprehensive Welsh food portal. This is related to the study of the WAGs in the USA and Canada and a proposal for the development of a virtual “market place” between the SMAFEs and the WAGs is explored. The WEI has joined forces with Web design companies WebAware and MAWR Ltd., to offer high quality consultancy and advice to provide Web site and e‐commerce solutions relevant to SMAFEs to create an anticipated multi‐million pound net gain to Wales and the Welsh Agri‐food sector through world‐wide sales. A Welsh food portal is therefore of immense importance as a marketing entrepreneurship interfacing tool not only to Agri‐food enterprises in Wales but also to customers from across the World. The paper concludes by arguing for the need for appropriate support to be provided for speciality Welsh SMAFEs to make them aware of the importance of the adoption of e‐commerce including the Internet and Web sites. This paper is a version of one that has been published in the International Journal of Applied Marketing, published by International Marketing Journals, ISSN: 1742‐2612.

The purposes of this study were to explore the moderating effect of consumer affinity on brand personality and consumers' intention to stay in a hotel, as well as on self-congruity and consumers' intention to stay in a hotel.

This study collected data from 386 inbound tourists to Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to analyze the data.

The results showed that brand personality, self-congruity and consumer affinity have significant positive effects on consumers' intention to stay in a hotel, respectively. Moreover, consumer affinity has significant moderating effect on brand personality and intention to stay in a hotel, as well as on self-congruity and intention to stay in a hotel.

Consumer affinity is a construct that identifies national attributes, and it strengthens the relationships between brand personality or self-congruity and consumers' intention to stay in a hotel from the level of country-specific affect. The results of this study can provide hotel marketers with reference for marketing management.

Although past studies have examined the relationship between consumer affinity and purchase intention or behavior, the effect of consumer affinity construct on hotel consumers' intention to stay remains sparse in the hotel context. This study confirmed that consumer affinity has significant moderating effect on brand personality and intention to stay in a hotel, as well as on self-congruity and intention to stay in a hotel.

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of soft power on the relationships between affinity toward country, country image, cosmopolitanism and preference on the internationalization of Brazilian cultural products.

This survey used data collected from a non-probabilistic sample of 478 Portuguese respondents, which was further analyzed using the partial least squares technique.

Affinity related to Brazil, the image of Brazil and cosmopolitanism influenced preference, and this, in turn, influenced the internationalization of Brazilian cultural products. Soft power moderated the relationships between cosmopolitanism and preference, country image and preference and preference and internationalization of cultural products.

This study focuses on the internationalization of a cultural product from one particular emerging economy (Brazil) to a specific developed economy (Portugal). Thus, the findings are bound to this specific context. However, it contributes to the field of international marketing research by concentrating on the moderating effects of soft power in the relationship between the investigated constructs.

In the case of Brazilian cultural products, i.e. music, emphases on Brazilian unique resources, i.e. the beauty, excitement, fantasy, mystique, prestige, etc. of natural resources, may be important features to be taken into consideration in national cultural policies.

The study contributes to the international marketing and consumer behavior literature by showing that consumer preference, affinity toward country and cosmopolitanism are important antecedents of the internationalization of cultural products.

This study aims to examine salespeople’s perspectives on the value of corporate heritage to relationship selling and the issue of trust in personal selling situations in the context of emerging markets.

An interpretive approach was adopted, and 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior salespeople in heritage institutions operating in Jordan.

This study reveals that corporate heritage is a valuable organizational resource for relationship selling. Reflecting the values of “trust” and “affinity,” corporate heritage confers trust to salespeople and their products in personal selling situations. Sales managers are advised to use corporate heritage to strengthen sales activities and empower salespeople.

While previous research has explained the significance of corporate heritage to relationship marketing, the significance of corporate heritage to relationship selling and the issue of trust in personal selling situations remain unexplored. Jordan represents a context that has been largely neglected despite being typical of the corporate heritage phenomenon.

The purpose of this study is to revisit brand performance metrics (BPMs) (brand affinity, brand content and knowledge, brand image, brand ethics and brand value) and evaluate the moderated mediation effect of relationship quality (mediator) and relationship duration (moderator) in brand performance and customer loyalty relationship in an Indian banking context.

The research model was tested in the Indian banking sector. The primary data was collected from the 1,000 account holders of five Indian public and private banks. The data was analysed and validated using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling and the Hayes process were used for testing the hypotheses.

The study results established BPMs as a four-dimensional structure comprising brand affinity, brand content and knowledge, brand image, brand ethics and brand value. The BPMs significantly positively impact relational quality (RQ) and customer loyalty. Further results also prove the existence of moderated mediation effect on BPMs and customer loyalty link and portray that the impact of BPMs on customer loyalty is mediated by the RQ and influenced by relationship duration.

The study is confined to the Indian banking sector. It did not examine the dimension-wise impact of brand performance indicators on RQ and customer loyalty. Future research is required to explore their influence in banking and other sectors.

The study findings suggest that to enhance brand performance, banks need to follow excellence in every conduct, take immediate actions against inappropriate behaviour, consistently update their relevant and valuable contents (news, videos, white papers, e-books, case studies, FAQ’s, photos, etc.) on their websites and also introduce loyalty schemes to reimburse customers’ interests with some substantial benefits such as rebates, discounts, annual gifts and extraordinary or additional services. These strategies can pave the way for enhancing long-term quality relationships between customers and their service providers and increasing customer loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is a maiden attempt to assess the effect of BPMs on customer loyalty in the presence of RQ and at the value of relationship duration/length. Besides, the study results also prove the existence of moderated mediation effect and portray that the impact of customer equity and relational benefits on customer loyalty is influenced by relationship duration and mediated by RQ.