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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensory marketing activities in an outdoor out-store shopping environment.

The study synthesizes the existing literature to build up an integrative conceptual framework of sensory marketing from the supply-side perspective. An observational study then follows to demonstrate how sensory marketing has been implemented in an outdoor out-store shopping environment in Japan.

The study has proved that there is an outdoor out-store marketing environment where marketers use sensory cues to provide the information about their shops and products/services to their potential customers. When looking at each shop separately, the dominant sensory cues are the visual ones; however, in the outdoor out-store marketing environment of a shopping street as a whole, the combination of visual, audio, and tactile cues is a popular practice. In addition, it is observed that some outdoor out-store marketing practices are oriented toward the local cultural values.

Implications for shopping environments management are discussed.

The study extends the theories on shopping environments to an outdoor out-store context, and supports the implementation of experiential marketing and context marketing.

Ethical decision making, business ethics.

This case is applicable to MBA, EDP and EMBA courses.

TOREAD, a professional provider of outdoor equipment in China, started in business by producing and selling tents. To meet market demand, TOREAD expanded its product line which ranges from outdoor durable tent products to “pan-outdoor” products including footwear and clothing. During the critical expansion phase, TOREAD was challenged by a quality problem in a batch of outsourced sandals that had been manufactured by a contracted supplier. By researching different options and going through an ethical decision making process, TOREAD made the choice of destroying all “problem sandals”. Since then, TOREAD has focused development on product quality improvement and product innovation to establish a sustainable brand image and generate social benefits. TOREAD's decision making in the critical development phase helped it to become the leader in the outdoor product industry in China.

This case may be used for courses such as business ethics and strategy. By learning this case, students can understand the process of making ethical decisions when facing moral dilemmas among corporate decision makers, employees and relevant interested parties, and learn how to make strategic decisions to balance company profit growth and social benefits in critical development phases.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Andreas Stihl AG is the world's leading manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor handheld power equipment. Based on marketing challenges in its high-volume retail channel—mass merchants such as The Home Depot and Lowe's—Stihl's U.S. unit has narrowed its distribution system to a single channel: independent retail dealers specializing in yard maintenance equipment. This risky and highly publicized decision has proved extremely successful, raising profits, attracting more dealers into exclusive relationships with Stihl, and strengthening the brand's top-quality positioning. But Stihl management are concerned that this channel system may not fit tomorrow's demographics, dominated by homeowners from the so-called Generation X and Generation Y. The case outlines Stihl's business and channel systems and customer needs, then poses a series of questions that management believes must be answered to determine whether to maintain or move away from reliance on its specialty retailers and how to adapt its system.

To understand issues related to retail channel strategy development in fast-changing consumer markets, as well as the challenges of adapting legacy routes-to-market systems to changing consumer service output demands.

Information for this case was gained first-hand as the case authors are also the protagonists. Care was taken to ensure case material was presented in an unbiased and accurate manner.

Sherry Finney, co-manager and partner at Escape Outdoors (EO), North Sydney, Nova Scotia, has just about completed a social media campaign collaboration with Cape Breton outdoor influencers, Davey and Sky. This was the company’s first collaboration with social influencers, and EO had done it to increase their follower base, particularly on Instagram. Defining measures of success was the task now facing Finney and her Sales and Marketing Assistant, Megan Penney. The campaign costs were in the range of $500, and if EO were to do this campaign again, they needed to understand the pros and cons and if it was a success. The campaign would end in a few days, and before it was finalized, Finney and Penney had to decide what final metrics would be required for evaluation and, specifically, how the campaign would be evaluated.

This case is intended for courses in social media marketing, marketing management, marketing analytics, digital marketing or entrepreneurship. The typical user of this case will be an undergraduate or graduate business student who has completed an introductory marketing concepts course.

The aim of this paper is to find out if there is an optimum combination of the three layer clothing system and if so to indicate how this layered system may be applied to the development and marketing of outdoor clothing.

Seven fabrics typically used in outdoor clothing systems were chosen for the experiments; two fabrics for base liner, two for the mid layer and three for the outer shell. A total of 12 different clothing systems, which are all possible combinations that a consumer may create as clothing systems, were then established using the selected fabrics. To evaluate the effectiveness of the clothing systems, the water vapour permeability of each of these varying combinations was measured under both isothermal conditions and non‐isothermal conditions.

When three layers of fabrics, each developed to be base liner, middle layer and outer shell, were assembled into a simulated clothing system, it was expected that they would function together as a whole, exerting some influence over each other. In this paper, it was found that the behaviour of water vapour permeability changes if a layered system is applied within a clothing system. Furthermore, it was also found that an optimum combination of the three layer clothing system does exist although the combination may differ according to the ways in which the clothing system is evaluated.

These findings may be used for the development and marketing of three layer outdoor clothing systems as consumers will benefit by being offered the clothing system that will provide them with maximum comfort.

The importance of location to retail organisations has long been recognised in the geography and retail marketing literatures, with subjective and “gut feel” methods of evaluation emerging as highly significant factors in the decision‐making process. Through the application of existing frameworks we seek to highlight the importance of location to small independent retailers in the context of outdoor leisure retailing. The case of “UpFront”, a pseudonym for a retailer operating four outlets in Great Britain, is presented. It is shown that, although based largely on luck and opportunism, the firm's locational “strategy” has been crucial to its success as a leading player in the sector. Based on detailed interviews with the managing director and employees, the role and importance of location as a critical success factor to the organisation is presented. In conclusion, a call is made for greater engagement with the nuances of location to small retail organisations, given its impact on a large number of retail operations.

Although advertising has always been regarded, and with very good reasons, as a branch of the more inclusive subject of marketing, it has enough specialized reference sources of its own to deserve a separate treatment. The fact that it is not comparatively a new discipline may be understood from a recent publication entitled How It Was in Advertising, 1776–1976, which originally came out as the bicentennial issue of Advertising Age. This compilation contains an historical narrative of personalities and agencies involved in the advertising business in the United States. It includes interesting facts, observing, for example, that the most revolutionary figure in 18th century advertising, none other than Ben Franklin, was the first on record to tap the potentials of the women's market by offering benefit copies. Since those days, advertising has grown into a multibillion dollar industry, big enough to attract the attention of Federal regulatory agencies.

Presents a discussion of an Internet Web site started in reaction to attacks on an historic street market in Chicago, USA. Takes an advocate’s perspective rather than an academic one and shows how the site developed to provide information about street vending around the world. Discusses the success and problems of using the Internet for the purposes of helping the poor on a shoestring budget.

The purpose of the research is to shed light on the evolution of distribution structures and its consequent implications for supply chain management (SCM) in the context of the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

A structured literature review followed by two case studies, which combine qualitative and quantitative analysis. Mainly in‐depth interviews were used, with company sales data analysis in terms of variation and forecast accuracy.

It was found that CEE distribution structures are overlapping, and along complex traditional structures there exists a possibility for a more direct approach. This modern key‐account approach improves supply chain performance, mainly due to echelon elimination and information sharing. The case studies also illustrate that supply chain demand distortion originating practices create uncertainty in demand, even in the case of modern key accounts. The findings therefore suggest that general SCM approaches of the “West” are evident and appropriate also in the “East”.

Owing to the limited number of case studies, this research is considered exploratory. The presented two case studies are essentially illustrative examples of the distribution operations of two international companies in CEE markets.

For practitioners, the two case studies provide important insight on the nature of alternative distribution structures in CEE, and what the level of forecast accuracy and the demand fluctuation may be expected. It is proposed that the emerging opportunities for supply chain partnership development should be carefully reviewed.

The paper draws upon real‐life data from emerging CEE markets with an approach that is not commonly used in distribution and SCM studies on CEE.

Check-in based advertising is growing dramatically as the popularity of social media increases. The purpose of this paper is to explore which social cues are appropriate for check-in based advertising in social media based on media richness theory and how content effectiveness affects content generation intention based on achievement motivation theory.

A laboratory experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of social cue strategies on content effectiveness of attitude toward the ad and self-efficacy on recall. The influence of effectiveness on content generation intention are also measured in the experiment.

The results of a laboratory experiment indicated that a strategy of using plentiful social cues has high effectiveness as measured by the concept of attitude toward the ad. Content effectiveness measured by attitude toward the ad and self-efficacy on recall can directly affect user intentions to generating check-in based advertisements.

Although check-in based advertising is driven by the customers themselves rather than by the company, companies can encourage their customers to follow an appropriate check-in content generation strategy to improve effectiveness.

The findings of this study provide useful information for designing the content of social media designed to facilitate the promotion of products and companies in online marketing.

In theoretical contribution, this study integrates media richness theory and achievement motivation theory to explore how users intent to generate check-in advertising according to social cues effectiveness.