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Factors influencing the use of mobile phone technologies for agricultural market information access remain a mixed debate, and there are contradictive views among studies. This study examined factors influencing the use of mobile phone technologies for agricultural marketing information access. The study is anchored on the technological acceptance model (TAM).

A descriptive cross-sectional research design was adopted with a sample size of 400 grape smallholder farmers. A structured questionnaire and focus group discussions (FGDs) were used to gather data. Descriptive, ordinal logistic regression and thematic approaches were used in data analysis.

The study confirmed grape smallholder farmers generally considered mobile phone technologies as an appropriate communication channel to stay informed about agricultural marketing information. It was found that reliable electricity supply, relevance, timeliness, perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of mobile phone technologies influenced the level of agricultural marketing information access.

This research is limited to a selected number of grape smallholder farmers in Dodoma, Tanzania, and leaves out those without mobile phones. Also, the study was cross-sectional in nature, so it may not be necessarily capable of consistently providing critical and consistent information about the same population over a series of times.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by integrating the use of mobile phone technologies to access marketing information in informing policy and decision-making processes to promote grape marketing.

This study seeks to examine the nature of consumers' perceptions of the value they derive from the everyday experiential consumption of mobile phones and how mobile marketing (m‐marketing) can potentially enhance these value perceptions.

Q methodology is used with a framework of experiential consumption and perceived consumer value, to examine how consumers' subjective perceptions and opinions of the two areas of interest are shared at a collective level. A total of 40 participants undertook two Q sorts and the data were analysed using PQ‐method.

The first Q sort identified three clusters of perceived value: the Mobile Pragmatists, the Mobile Connectors and the Mobile Revellers. The second Q sort identified two clusters of perceived value of m‐marketing: one emerging from the shared opinions of the Mobile Pragmatists and the Mobile Connectors, and the second from the Mobile Revellers.

The findings show how consumers can be segmented based on their contextualised perceived value of consuming mobile phones. The findings also show that m‐marketing can be tailored to enhance these value perceptions. The study demonstrates how to use Q methodology to examine subjective areas of consumer behaviour. Limitations relate to deriving statements for the Q sorts and the generalisability of the results.

The findings highlight ways to tailor m‐marketing strategies to complement consumers' perceptions of the value offered through their mobile phones.

The study contributes to existing theory and practice through using Q methodology to examine two subjective areas of consumer behaviour research: experiential consumption in everyday life and consumer perceived value, which is applied in the context of mobile phones and m‐marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that shape the adoption of mobile phones for vegetable marketing by Vietnamese smallholders.

A structured questionnaire was given to 185 smallholders randomly chosen from 345 vegetable smallholders in the Vinh Thanh district of Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and a binary logistic regression were applied to analyse the data.

The research results show that the smallholders’ adoption of mobile phones for vegetable marketing is significantly affected by their number of extension contacts, distance from smallholders’ homes to local markets, community-based organisation participation, gender, training/credit programme participation, age, education level, income and farm size (χ² = 143,111, p < 0.000).

A combination of factors related to socio-economic, situational and institutional characteristics of smallholders should be considered when promoting smallholders’ uptake of mobile phones for vegetable marketing in developing nations.

This research provides useful insights into the determinants of mobile phone adoption for vegetable marketing by smallholders and highlights areas that need to be considered when designing policies to improve the uptake of information and communication technologies in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a recent study which explored consumer perceptions of mobile phone marketing. Through the application of constructs adapted from traditional innovation and product involvement research, the study examined how a consumer's perception of the relative advantages, compatibility and complexity associated with mobile phone marketing, and their involvement with their mobile phone, influenced their intention to accept marketing communication sent via this channel.

A deductive, quantitative research approach was adopted, where data was collected using a self‐completed questionnaire administered to a sample of 254 university students.

Statistical analysis revealed that a consumer's perceptions of two of the three innovation attributes tested (relative advantage and compatibility) were significantly associated with their acceptance (or adoption) of marketing messages sent via their mobile phone. However, a slightly weaker relationship between a consumer's level of involvement with their mobile phone and their adoption of mobile phone marketing was found.

This research provides companies with important insights into the factors that may encourage or deter consumer acceptance of this new form of direct marketing.

The value of this study derives from its novel use of an established innovation framework, combined with an assessment of product involvement, to examine consumer perceptions of mobile phone marketing.

This study aims to investigate the effect of social influence and value-driven mobile marketing activities on consumers’ acceptance of mobile marketing offers.

The method used is survey questionnaire. A proposed model was tested by using structural model analysis and data gathered from 356 Mexico consumers and 346 US consumers.

The study shows the number of peers and providing information are the main predictor variables of consumer acceptance of mobile marketing offers in both countries. These results suggest that social value factors are important variables for explaining consumers’ responses to mobile marketing offers across two countries characterized by dissimilar macro-environmental conditions.

The study’s overall implication about standardization vs adaptation is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries. One limitation in this study is the use of a convenience sample of undergraduate college students. This study did not control for different types of mobile phones and the screen sizes of mobile phones.

The overall implication of standardization vs adaptation from the study results is that social value messages can be standardized across countries. However, the marketing tools and touch points required to communicate any message appeal must be adapted across countries.

Unlike previous studies where the emphasis is to explicate the effect of value-oriented mobile activity, this study examines the combined effect of social influence and value-driven mobile activities on acceptance of mobile marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to use the consumer-based discrepancy theory to examine consumers’ behavioral motivations for using mobile devices and the factors that influence the rapid diffusion of Chinese mobile devices in Nigeria.

Data were collected using focus group interviews with samples cutting across users, technicians and experts from Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s industrial capital. This study conducted a thematic analysis of the data with NVivo Pro 11 for deductive coding.

The authors found that weak regulatory environment opened the Nigerian mobile market to the influx of mobile devices from Chinese local manufacturers. Though largely absent in developed markets, Chinese mobile devices are household names in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Having studied the Nigerian market, Chinese mobile device manufacturers have incorporated features and specifications in their mobile devices that are adapted specifically to this market. Our findings also show that these “China phones and tablets” are significantly inferior to those manufactured by global brands. However, consumer complaints have led to significant improvements in their quality. Consequently, due to their successful diffusion, Nigeria is being used as a launching pad to other African countries.

While the study could not look at the economic, environmental and health implications of the high death rate of the mobile devices, it however provides useful insights on the application of the consumer-based discrepancy theory: expectation vs performance, in the Nigerian mobile market context.

The study is the first to empirically examine the diffusion of Chinese mobile devices in one of the key emerging markets in Africa. The study provides blueprint for the local regulatory authorities on how to strengthen their regulatory oversight and also advances critical understanding on how Chinese mobile device manufacturers can improve their technologies and optimize market opportunity in Africa.

There is a contradictive debate on factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness among scholars. This study aims to examine factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness for accessing agricultural marketing information.

A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used with 400 smallholder grape farmers. The use of structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews helped to collect primary data. Data analysis was subjected to descriptive, ordinal logistic regression and thematic approaches.

This study found that farmers were mostly aware of voice calls helping to access buyers and price information. Education, age and sex were the critical factors influencing mobile phone usage awareness among grape smallholder farmers.

This study contributes to scientific knowledge by providing an understanding of the perceived factors on mobile phone usage awareness within the grape subsector to inform policymakers.

This paper aims to focus on interactions between old and new cultural influences, investigating consumer preferences for a new type of product – the mobile phone – by looking at the cultural and socio‐economic factors that affect these preferences.

A total of 22 Russian experts in design and marketing were interviewed in the spring of 2005. The paper takes the viewpoint of Western firms interested in Russian (mobile phone) markets.

The study shows that the general features (high power distance, femininity, high uncertainty avoidance) characterizing Russian culture affect preferred mobile phone design. Long‐term values are seen, for example, in family orientation, which affects the use of mobile phones. Changing cultural and socio‐economic features are seen in the strict division of consumers into distinct segments. Current aspects of society, such as high level of street crime, are apparent in the desired features of products. The emerging Russian markets seem to consist of very different consumer groups and simultaneously represent both old and new cultural features and norms. Design has become a central tool for affecting product marketing, and an influential community of designers and a design industry are emerging.

Cooperation with the local designers can provide an important competitive edge and support when promoting both industrial and consumer goods in Russia's emerging markets.

Design was earlier neglected and it has only recently started to play a more significant role in production and marketing of products in Russia. Designers can now act as important intermediaries between Russian markets and Western marketers.

A method is proposed for handling multi-attribute judgment problems with a large number of attributes such as mobile phone features. To minimize the complication of multi-attributes and reduce the consumers’ choice task burden, this paper aims to suggest an integrated hierarchical survey design (IHSD) with the Kano model. The author compared the utility of mobile phone’s attributes for each market and for customer segment by analyzing empirical data on wear obtained from six Middle East and African countries, five Asia-Pacific countries and three European countries. Based on an IHSD of 10,200 respondents, brand, camera, memory and LTE (4G) play vital roles in all regions. In contrast, Wi-Fi, file-editor, MMS, LCD size and phone type are displayed as the least important attributes. The results of this study were successfully implemented for product planning, product development and marketing strategy in terms of price setting, features prioritizing and optimal designing for new products in the mobile phone company.

The first step was to list all possible features with the product planning team, product development team and market research specialists. The second step divided the selected features for designing a mobile phone into subgroups based on their functional characteristics by using the Kano model. The method for classifying features was determined using Kano questionnaire. The third step incorporated a fractional factorial design for the “must-be” choice-based conjoint (CBC) (Oppewal et al., 1994) which includes two factors: whether customers required the “one-dimensional” feature or the “attractive” feature, along with the “must-be” attributes. The consumers who selected the “must-be” features could choose both the “one-dimensional” feature and the “attractive” feature groups or one of the two feature groups in no particular order. Fractional factorial design was applied to both the “one-dimensional” features and the “attractive” features for individual CBCs. Random sequences of the combinations of attribute levels were generated for each of the three types of CBC analyses (“must-be”, “one-dimensional” and “attractive”). At the same time, the fourth step conducted a survey of the individual groups for the conjoint analysis on the functional characteristics of a mobile phone. The analysis of the accumulated data obtained from all the feature groups was completed using conditional logit models as part of the fifth step. In addition, the “must-be” CBC design was linked with the “one-dimensional” and “attractive” CBC designs. The sixth step was to analyze the accumulated results obtained from all the feature groups and estimate the usefulness of each feature’s level in the context of the CBC. Based on the results of the sixth step, the importance and willingness-to-pay of each attribute were estimated in the seventh step.

Use of the conjoint important score is aimed to expand the market by finding the different consumers’ needs across the regions. In detail, attributes such as “FM Transmitter”, “Touch screen” and “Health (heart rate)” are considered consumers’ new crucial needs in Europe, which would enable the product to superiorly differentiate itself from others to dominate the current market. On the other hand, it is shown that attributes such as “brand”, “mobile TV”, “external memory”, “mobile tracker” and “4G” are more important in Asia-Pacific. Therefore, if mobile manufacturers develop this sector more, it will grant mobile manufacturers the opportunity to lead the market. The only difference of the Middle East and African consumers is that “NFC” has a higher importance while the rest of the needs are very similar to those of Asia-Pacific. Regarding willingness-to-pay (WTP) among countries, the highest scoring utility, besides brand, appeared to be associated with the camera function in all countries. Especially, relatively low utility value was given in Wi-Fi and File-editer, MMS, LCD size and Phone type. In a value-based approach, the price of a product is based on the perceived valuation by the target customers. The research in the field of pricing is of ample importance. This is because price is the only element of the marketing mix that generates income. All other elements, such as advertising and promotion, product development, selling effort, distribution and packaging, involve expenditures (Monroe, 2003). Regarding among regions, the needs for 3G and the internet-related feature (WAP, Wi-Fi, etc.) in the emerging market are low compared to those for 4G and internet-related feature in the mature market. Also, the needs for productivity and advanced features, such as camera and e-mail, are lower in Asia-Pacific than in Europe. It is therefore recommended that manufactures and marketers of mobile phones should consider producing and selling phones with modern technology features that are more durable and of highly quality.

The integrated hierarchical survey by function with the Kano model proves to be a highly useful, efficient and accurate methodology for understanding a consumer mobile phone behavior. Although the proposed method was applied to designs of mobile phones in the emerging and mature markets, its accuracy was not compared with the traditionally used methods such as CBC, adaptive conjoint analysis and hybrid method. This is left for further areas of research.

The results of this research study correspond with previous studies conducted (Pakola et al., 2010; Das, 2012; Malaasi, 2012, 2008; Dziwornu, 2013), which consider the features of mobile phone as a crucial factor in consumer buying decision in all countries. It is significant that this study made huge impact on mobile phone manufacturers in several ways. It has been converted into product development with consumer-oriented approach. The pricing policy has been changed from cost-based pricing into value-based pricing; and marketing strategy has been changed from an unsystematic function into a systematic and consistent one.

The proposed method with the Kano model proved to be a practical and efficient tool for decision-making, as it helped mobile manufacturers to better understand how customers evaluate and perceive quality attributes. The Kano model was used to explain how the quality attributes can be classified into mainly three categories of perceived quality: “must-be”, “one-dimensional” and “attractive”. It has lots of benefits in terms of cost and time reduction and is expected to bring a great effect into the industrial field.

Smartphone adoption by consumers is increasing exponentially, and presents marketers with many new opportunites to reach and serve customers. However, are consumers ready for mobile marketing through their smartphones? This study aims to investigate consumers' willingness to accept marketing through their smartphones.

The study is based on an online survey of 428 respondents. The data is analyzed through ANOVA and regression analysis.

The results indicate that consumers' shopping style, brand trust, and value are key motivations for engaging in mobile marketing through their smartphones. Further research should focus on specific tactics marketers use to engage customers beyond marketing messages, that is, how they engage customers in dialogue to build relationships, encourage purchases and build loyalty. This could reveal how customers really want to engage in mobile marketing.

This research adds to the growing body of evidence on acceptance of mobile marketing.

This study found that successful enagement of customers in mobile marketing requires that marketers focus their strategies and tactics around value creation; getting customers to engage with their brand in an authentic way; and respecting customers' shopping style, i.e. engaging customers the way they want to be engaged. Marketers must listen to their customers and develop appropriate strategies rather than simply adapting existing marketing strategies.

The topic of mobile marketing through smartphones is important to both marketing executives and marketing researchers. To date, this topic has attracted little research attention and marketing executives are simply basing their decsions on anecdotal case studies and reports in the popular press. This study contributes to fulfilling the need for research evidence.