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The purpose of this paper is to study the responses of young consumers to suspected covert and overt product-brand recommendations in a blog.

Experimental design was applied to investigate the effect of covert and overt marketing on young consumers’ perceptions of blogger credibility and their behavioural intentions.

Overt marketing had a negative effect on behavioural intentions, such as future interest in the blogger, intention to engage in word-of-mouth, and purchase intention. Covert marketing did not affect the intended behaviour. Neither covert nor overt marketing influenced the blogger’s credibility.

The study was delimited to a small sample; one blog, one type of product recommendation, and a well-known brand. Young, well-educated consumers with experience in reading blogs may be able to filter the brand recommendations and focus on the content of the blog.

This study has implications for bloggers, companies, and policy makers. Although overt marketing is the most open and the recommended form of blog marketing, the study showed that overt marketing has negative effects. Therefore, bloggers need to carefully consider how they present a sponsorship.

The study makes three important contributions. First, it answers the call for research on consumer reactions to covert (deceptive) and overt marketing tactics. Second, it contributes to blog marketing research by studying a case of suspected covert marketing where consumers do not know whether the blog is sponsored or not. Third, the study contributes to knowledge around young consumers, demonstrating that covert and overt tactics do not affect blogger credibility.

Introduction It is noticeable that most management training and education incorporates an element of marketing studies in one form or another. This is true for business studies degrees and diplomas, for post‐graduate management degrees and diplomas, and for professional studies. It may be in need of particular justification, since it is often the case that it is easier to see the link between topics such as management accounting and functions such as production or personnel, than the relationship with marketing, which seems a rather different type of business discipline. In fact, this problem is complicated further by the changing nature of marketing itself, since views on the role of marketing in the company have changed radically in most companies in the last two decades.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing strategy; Customer service; Sales management; Promotion; Product management; Marketing research/customer behavior; Sundry.

Postulates that advances made in marketing, particularly in the USA, have only served to highlight shortcomings in this discipline particularly the absence of central theories and related general principles. Discusses how markets have evolved as socio‐economic processes and means intended to satisfy people's and organisation's needs through trading or exchange transactions – though markets have existed for as long as history is recorded. Contrasts the evolution of market theory and the differences between people of varying areas and cultures and examines theses in depth as: primitive markets (pre‐Columbus period in the USA); traditional markets; merchant trader markets (1500 to 1776); and free competitive markets (late 1700s); mixed markets (middle 1800s). Illustrates, in tabular format, the influence of forces and conditions inhibiting market functions, thereby complementing cases used in earlier discussion. Summarizes that a step has been taken towards progressing a theory of modern markets – particularly regarding the north American area.

The purpose of this article is to define and explore the strategic value of customer advocacy through the lens of the brand management literature.

The paper reviews recent analysis of the value and vulnerabilities of brands and branding in order to understand why customer advocacy is becoming an attractive strategic option for many firms. A model of empowered consumer value drivers is constructed to demonstrate how they are becoming an important source of brand value. A framework for brand management in a customer advocacy context is introduced and examples of companies pursuing advocacy‐based strategies and practices are illustrated.

Through careful brand management, customer advocacy is capable of unlocking new consumer value.

The paper offers a discussion of the opportunities presented to brand management when developing customer advocacy.

The purpose of this study contributes to literature on marketing communications by empirically contrasting the effectiveness of a new form of covert promotions (product placement in recipes) and an overt promotion (traditional advertisement). The mediating role of perceived believability of promotional materials and the moderating roles of advertising skepticism and brand awareness were examined based on a conceptual model.

A Web-based experiment with 2 (form of promotion: overt versus covert) × 2 (brand awareness: low versus high) between-subjects full factorial design was used. A public sample of 537 participants had participated in the study. The conceptual model was further tested on 106 participants using stimuli of a fictitious brand.

A two-stage moderated mediation analysis shows that the perceived believability of promotional materials was a significant mediator of the form of promotion and brand evaluations. Consumers showed a higher level of believability toward covert promotion, which, in turn, led to more positive evaluations of the promoted brand. Advertising skepticism and brand awareness were found to significantly moderate the relationship between form of promotion and attitudes toward the promoted brands. A similar pattern of results was obtained when stimuli of a fictitious brand were used.

This research addresses an important issue in marketing communication and extends the understanding of the perception of overt and covert promotions by examining the underlying mediating and moderating variables, which have rarely been explored before. The results guide marketers in developing effective marketing communication strategies for well-known, less well-known and even new brands. It also directs policymakers to consider whether integrated branded content in recipes should be disclosed to protect consumers from surreptitious promotions, which may help to lower consumers’ skepticism toward advertising in the long run.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate fashion blogs’ influence on Spanish Millennials’ buying behaviour.

This research is quantitative in nature, utilising a mono method consisting of structured self-administered questionnaires. Data were exported to IBM SPSS Statistics, where different types of analyses were combined – such as frequencies, means, hypothesis testing analyses, principal components analysis or K-means cluster.

Findings show that the most important motivations to follow a fashion blog are entertainment and information seeking. Besides, consumers’ attitudes seem to be influenced by how consumers assess credibility, which is determined by trustworthiness, para-social interaction (PSI), expertise and message credibility. Finally, after showing covert and overt marketing posts, both trustworthiness and PSI were lower than before, identifying PSI as a possible moderator in these cases.

The main limitation of this study is the sample size, which does not make it possible to generalise conclusions.

From this research, it can be said that, due to the importance of establishing a strong relationship with the public, bloggers should try to connect with readers on an emotional level, and brands need to select bloggers very carefully.

This paper reveals Millennials’ attitudes whilst they are visiting a fashion blog and the influence that these attitudes can exercise on their purchase intention.

Marketing signals are communication vehicles which provide information beyond the mere form of the message ‐ a message within a message. These signals can be sent to competitors, customers, suppliers, or other interested stakeholders (e.g., government, stockholders, community). Discusses marketing signals and the advantages and disadvantages of market signalling. Provides the results of a study of business market signalling, and offers recommendations on how a firm can signal more effectively to its customers and competitors.

There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. Although the paper shares an interest in ending social discrimination, the paper is more circumspect about pronounced individualism and technological fixes. Despite its appeal, or perhaps because of it, the paper should not accept the claim at face value. The paper argues that social discrimination may not disappear under smarter marketing; more overt forms may wane only to be replaced by more subtle forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper compares the two most important techniques of “smarter” marketing – predictive analytics and Facebook's social graph – with current discriminatory practices of weblining and e-scoring. While noting advances against overt discrimination, the paper describes how smarter marketing allows for covert forms.

Innovative strategies to record and mine users' tastes and social connectivity for marketing purposes open the way for covert social discrimination.

The paper provides a critical assessment of two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry: by monitoring consumer web activity and collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumer's best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals.

Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and judicial decisions that contain 2,041 quantitative estimates of overcharges of hard-core cartels. The primary findings are: (1) the median average long-run overcharge for all types of cartels over all time periods is 23.0%; (2) the mean average is at least 49%; (3) overcharges reached their zenith in 1891–1945 and have trended downward ever since; (4) 6% of the cartel episodes are zero; (5) median overcharges of international-membership cartels are 38% higher than those of domestic cartels; (6) convicted cartels are on average 19% more effective at raising prices as unpunished cartels; (7) bid-rigging conduct displays 25% lower markups than price-fixing cartels; (8) contemporary cartels targeted by class actions have higher overcharges; and (9) when cartels operate at peak effectiveness, price changes are 60–80% higher than the whole episode. Historical penalty guidelines aimed at optimally deterring cartels are likely to be too low.