Search results

This paper aims to conceptualise and characterise brand systems and outline propositions and research avenues to advance the systems’ view of branding.

A conceptual synthesis approach is adopted to integrate the extant branding research perspectives. The conceptual framework is grounded in the theoretical foundation of marketing systems theory.

The conceptual framework delineates brand inputs, throughputs, outcomes and feedback effects within a brand system. It configures the complexity and dynamics of brand value formation among brand actors within the branding environment.

This paper contributes to systems thinking in branding and brand value co-creation research. It extends marketing systems theory into the branding context and provides research directions for exploring the structural and functional configurations, cause–consequence processes and outcome concerns of brand value formation.

This conceptual framework informs brand development, management and regulation at a macro level. Managers can apply the brand system concept to identify and manage conflicting expectations of brand actors and alleviate adverse brand outcomes such as negative brand externalities, enhancing overall brand system health and societal value.

This research expands the scope of brand actor agency and identifies the likelihood of disproportionate brand outcomes. It provides methodological guidelines for analysis and intervention in brand systems.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and demonstrate the relevance of marketing systems, notably the process of product management and innovation, to urban development challenges.

A macromarketing perspective is adopted to construe the city as a product and begin the application of the innovation process to urban management, following the steps commonly proposed for successful innovation in product management. An example of the application of the initial new product development steps of idea generation and opportunity identification is presented.

The innovation process provides guidelines and checkpoints that enable corporations to improve the success rate of their development initiatives. Cities, like corporations, need to innovate in order to maintain their image and functionality, to provide a myriad benefits to their stakeholders and, thereby, to survive and grow. The example here shows how the preliminary NPD steps of idea generation and opportunity identification enrich the process of identifying and analysing new industry opportunities for a city.

By conceptualising the city as a multifaceted product, the disciplined planning and evaluation processes pertinent to NPD success become relevant and helpful to practitioners responsible for urban planning, urban development and change.

The paper shows how pertinent concepts and processes from marketing can be effectively applied to urban planning and economic development initiatives.

The tension between individual and collective well-being is at the core of the macromarketing perspective, and transformative luxury research (TLR) has recently begun to consider this in the context of luxury consumption. This conceptual paper reviews TLR in the setting of the tourism and hospitality industry.

The study is based on a literature review in the field of marketing and tourism management.

The authors propose a TLR–management model (MM), which identifies the link between TLR and well-being, as well as four elements that are important for the success of luxury innovations: risk; trust; ethics and ambidextrous management practices. Further studies will be able to apply this conceptual model in diverse luxury markets to develop more industry-specific versions of it but should always maintain the model’s focus on individual and collective well-being to ensure that it supports the growth of transformative luxury in the future.

The research has highlighted the benefits (individual and community well-being) of transformative research in the field of luxury products and services, but also the requirements (taking risk, trust and ambidextrous management) to achieve this transformative stage.

The study provides a guideline to be followed by the luxury yachting industry to reach its transformative potential.

The purpose of this paper is to delve into the intricate relationships between hijab culture and consumption. The research questions whether the hijab consumption phenomenon is an icon of fashion or an authentic blend of religious and cultural tenets.

The research uses a netnographic approach in a qualitative manner similar to ethnography on the internet. An online forum is created on social media for Egyptian hijabista consumers, who reflect on their self-transformations with respect to the hijab phenomenon.

The findings of the study provide insights relevant to the consumer experiences of the hijab fashion phenomenon. The results are analyzed using Holt’s (1995) consumption parabola, where the insights show the consumption as experience, integration, play and classification metaphors in action. Most insights show that the hijab fashion experience combines authentic religious meanings with cultural ones.

The study methodology used is qualitative, thereby putting limitations on generalizing the findings to other consumers and contexts.

The findings are relevant to fashion designers and fashion marketers who aim at understanding the hijabista culture.

The results are relevant to consumer culture theorists as well as to macromarketing researchers looking at authenticity in the hijab fashion phenomenon. The research is also relevant in understanding the hijabista culture, which is a growing consumer culture around the globe.

The research combines the literatures on consumer culture theory, self-transformations and authenticity with regards to the hijab consumption phenomenon. Such relationships were not explored previously in the literature. The methodological approach is also novel.

The paper examines three main stakeholders in the market and their roles toward achieving sustainability marketing. Those stakeholders are consumers, companies and policymakers. The current study is examining consumers’ attitudes toward sustainability marketing and their purchase intentions of sustainable products through the use of theory of planned behavior. The paper is also examining the role of companies and policymakers in encouraging consumers to consider sustainability in their purchasing decisions.

Concurrent research study is applied, where qualitative and quantitative research methods are conducted at the same time for different purposes with equal weights. Qualitative interviews were applied with fast-moving consumer goods companies and policymakers, while quantitative surveys were applied with Egyptian consumers.

The results showed that companies are taking serious and effective steps in transforming their marketing strategies into sustainable marketing ones. The government role is still limited as there are no strict laws and regulations that force companies and factories in Egypt to develop sustainability marketing strategies. Consumers’ attitudes were highly affected by firms' sustainable practices as well as subjective norms that led to influencing their intentions toward purchasing sustainable products.

Although the topic of sustainability marketing is considered by a plenty of researchers in the academic discipline, there are no studies that have combined the main three stakeholders' roles in achieving sustainability marketing in one study. The study highlights the impact of government role and firms' role on consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions toward sustainable products, especially convenient products. This was done through the adoption of the theory of planned behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review essay of the scholarly work of Donald Dixon, focusing on six of his major contributions to marketing thought and theory.

The research relied heavily on previously published articles, personal interviews and databank searches.

A more complete timeline of the history of marketing thought is presented. The historical work done by Dixon shows us that marketing is not a recent field of human behavior but dates back millennia. His contributions have enriched the marketing discipline and have positioned marketing in its rightful place as a social science studying one aspect of human behavior, which is buying and selling.

Knowing more about the history of marketing is useful both to academics and to practitioners. One learn more about the practitioners and intellectual thinkers of the past who have laid the foundation of marketing as a social science.

The essay ofers but a succinct summary of Dixonian marketing thought with his many contributions to marketing scholarship and macromarketing thought over the past 50 years.

Develops an approach to the discipline of macro‐marketing as a means for discussion. Approaches the task of agenda by considering: scope and domain of macro‐marketing; classification of research issues at a general level; and major macro‐marketing issues facing different groups in various developed and underdeveloped countries. Concludes that the promise of macro‐marketing as an emergent field is a function of the research directions this field takes; suggests, further, that these directions are a product of social processes and therefore not a matter of prescription or infallible predictions.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to Victor Lebow, an unknown contributor to critical marketing studies. The paper also contributes to the literature on marketing amnesia. A brief biography of Lebow is presented in which it is established that he was a marketing professional. The paper then discusses his unacknowledged contribution to critical thought by exploring his only book.

The paper is based on a close reading of Lebow’s only book, contextualizing it by placing it in historical context. The paper uses a traditional historical narrative approach to present the results.

It is pointed out that the business system, including marketing, is riven with power relations that are largely unappreciated or ignored. Woven into Lebow’s account is an attempt to rethink aspects of theory, practice and especially institutions that had and have assumed a taken-for-granted status. It is established that Lebow’s thought, as a marketing professional, went well beyond typical marketing. He presents an interesting and innovative program for converting private enterprise into a socially responsible structure without resulting to any form of socialism.

No such review or evaluation of Victor Lebow has been published. One 1955 article has been frequently cited. His wider thought has been ignored.

This paper aims to provide guidance on how midstream social marketing can be used to understand and address wicked problems through adopting a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective.

Rothschild’s motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) framework is applied in this study to understand veterinarians as midstream microactors in the macrosystem of wicked animal welfare issues. Focus group and individual interview data from veterinarians were analysed through the lens of the MOA framework to understand veterinarians’ as midstream microactors within a systems continuum.

The MOA of veterinarians to engage downstream targets – cat owners – in behaviour change are identified. Fresh insights reveal the challenges and barriers to simply focusing on veterinarians as the key microactor required to address the wicked problem of cat overpopulation. Challenges identified include the cost of sterilisation to both owners and veterinary practices, alongside vying beliefs about the capacity of individual veterinarians to persuade owners about the benefits of sterilisation to improve animal welfare. Additionally, insight into veterinarians’ perceptions of upstream strategies to address the problem – in terms of marketing, education and law – expose further complications on where regulation and law enforcement can be integrated in future social marketing strategies to address the cat overpopulation problem.

The application of the MOA framework improves understanding of the concept and practice of midstream social marketing. It provides a practical and strategic tool that social marketers can apply when approaching behaviour change that leverages midstream actors as part of the social change solution.

Research and theorisation in this paper demonstrates an alternative pathway to address wicked problems via a collaborative systems integration approach conceptualised from a macromarketing perspective. Effective long-term change relies on understanding and coordinating a broad macrosystem of interconnected actors along a downstream, midstream and upstream continuum. This starts by understanding the microactions of individual actors within the macrosystem.

This paper aims to present a definition of social marketing that considers the purpose and role of social marketing beyond behaviour change.

The paper reviews present social marketing definitions and then bolsters its underlying theoretical structure with insights distilled from three schools of thought: macromarketing, transformative consumer research and the capability approach.

Guided by the three theoretical streams, we introduce our definition, namely: social marketing is the application of marketing principles to enable individual and collective ideas and actions in the pursuit of effective, efficient, equitable, fair and sustained social transformation.

We present a list of practical implications derived from our definition of social marketing. We stress that our social marketing definition better reflects the need to balance the effects (efficiency and effectiveness) and the process (equity, fairness and sustainability) of social marketing practices. By our definition of social marketing, the marketer becomes a facilitator and participant rather than a behaviour change agent.

The paper introduces into social marketing three streams of thought that represent the most contemporary aspects of economic, market and consumer philosophy. We believe our definition can better guide social marketing in its quest to transform societies to be capable, free, equitable, fair and sustainable.