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Most previous studies have indicated promotional attributes separately (e.g. time pressure, giveaways, price discounts, exclusivity) and found controversial effects. This paper aims to explore how different attributes can be aligned with each other and integrated with different levels of brand strength to influence sales or purchase intention according to the fit logic.

Both field data and controlled experiments are used to understand the effectiveness of promotion configurations. This paper first conducts an exploratory study using qualitative comparative analysis, based on 625 online promotion campaigns. This paper identifies several effective configurations of promotion attributes, leading to the development of two hypotheses. Three experiments are then designed to test the validity of these two hypotheses.

The results show that strong brands should adopt nonmonetary promotion, whereas weak brands should adopt monetary promotion; exclusivity and time limitation should be used separately.

This paper provides empirical insights on how promotion elicits sales in terms of the configuration of promotional attributes and brand strength. This paper examines the integrative effect of types of giveaways, promotion duration and promotion target as well as brand strength on promotion effectiveness. Future research can explore other promotional attributes. This study is a first attempt to introduce and apply the set-theoretic approach to address strategic research issues and inform strategic decisions and managerial actions.

The findings can facilitate marketers’ understanding and predictions of deal recipients’ responses to promotions.

This paper adopts a holistic view to investigate how different promotion attributes interact with one another to stimulate sales. It explores the integrative effect from field data and finds converging evidence through a set-theoretic approach and controlled experiments.

To fulfill their economic and social missions, it is imperative yet challenging for hybrid ventures to demonstrate legitimacy (fitting in) while simultaneously projecting distinctiveness (standing out). One important means for doing so is by adopting and promoting the recent B Corporation certification. Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of the emergence of this certification, we argue that when it comes to promoting their businesses, hybrid ventures should not adopt a one size fits all approach. Rather, their promotion strategies need to be adapted to their specific contexts. We theorize and develop a typology of certification promotion strategies for hybrid ventures based on the relative prevalence of other hybrid ventures in the same regions and industries. We conclude by articulating why the B Corporation movement is a rich and underexplored context for scholarship on hybrid ventures, and highlight several promising future research directions.

The case is based on a real $25 million project at a major U.S.-based computer manufacturer. For confidentiality reasons the company has been disguised as A&D High Tech. The Web-based online ordering system project is required by sales and marketing for the fall holiday season. If the project misses this window, the firm will lose substantial market share to competitors. Part (B) takes place three months into the original project plan. The project manager has just been fired and the management challenge is to find out what is wrong with the project and recommend fixes. In addition, the scope of the project has changed: the VP of marketing has an additional promotional bundle requirement. A&D High Tech (A) examines how to create and analyze a project plan in Microsoft Project. In order to make the case manageable for students we reduced the size of the project, and corresponding number of resources, to approximately $1 million, but retained all of the features of the original project. Part (B) gives actual work done on each task three months into the project. Students must answer the management questions: Can the project be fixed and completed in time for the holiday season? Can the additional requirements be incorporated, and if so, what is the best approach? In order to answer these questions, earned value data can be extracted from Microsoft Project and analyzed. These data provide important insights into the root cause of problems with the project. The next step is to reduce the scope of the project and reassign resources. However, one must be aware that indiscriminately adding people can slow a project down, not speed it up. Finally, the additional promotional bundle requirement from the VP of marketing provides an important outsourcing management discussion. The case can also be taught using other project management software tools, such as Primavera.

The case teaches students how to analyze a project in trouble using Microsoft Project (or other project management software tool). More important, the case teaches prospective executives how to manage a project in trouble by first accurately diagnosing the problems, then reducing scope where necessary, and finally replanning the project with reallocated resources. In addition, students will learn the tradeoffs of outsourcing to highly specialized professionals vs. average contractors.

Business travel is key custom to many hotels. Value springs both from volume and relatively low rates of discounting and commission, but what type of strategies will make for success in the future? Three main themes emerge from a review of reported trends in provision: development of special brands, enhancement of special on‐site services and use of promotions.

This article aims to extend the price‐quality trade‐off framework to derive new results for differential pricing strategies for brands in different brand tiers. The results are demonstrated for different market configurations.

A conceptual framework based on the quality‐price trade‐off from existing literature is used to analytically derive research hypotheses regarding pricing strategies. The results are demonstrated empirically by extending previously published results.

The study reveals that optimal pricing strategies are dependent on the tier to which the brands belong. Promotional pricing is better for high‐tier brands, while everyday low price is better for low‐tier brands. Similarly, deep and infrequent price promotions are better for high‐tier brands, while shallow and frequent promotions are better for low‐tier brands.

The findings offer some important implications of the brand‐tier competition framework for determining optimal pricing strategies and can inform pricing strategies for brands in different tiers.

Asymmetric inter‐tier competition is demonstrated for different market configurations, and the framework is used to derive optimal pricing strategy implications for brands in different tiers.

Based on Lasswell’s communication model, this study investigates how four categories of factors (i.e. the source, content, medium and receiver) conjointly affect the relational, financial and social outcomes (i.e. what effect) of CSA communication.

With a survey (N = 366), this study found configurations of core CSA communication factors leading to three different CSA communication outcomes.

While this study found multiways to yield three different CSA outcomes, combinational logic indicated the combined effects from source, content, medium and receiver. With content and medium, individuals’ connectedness (receiver) to a CSA issue is a core factor leading to a high level of purchase intention and issue advocacy. This study also found that message strategies (i.e. informativeness, factual tone, no promotional tone) are core factors leading to a high level of trust and issue advocacy.

With the theoretical guidance, this research contributes to strategic communication practice for various entities involved in advocacy communication by enabling an improved understanding of advocacy communication factors and triggering different communication outcomes.

As CSA communication involves multiple strategies, conventional research agenda focusing on correlational and path analysis approaches provide limited understanding of communication practice. To fill this void, this study adopts a configurational approach to understand current CSA communication practices holistically.

Placement prominence is a multidimensional concept. Previous studies have defined and operationalized prominence in different ways, and no studies have tried to systematically examine what should and should not be counted as prominence. This study aims to fill this gap.

Using a content analysis of six short films and a survey study on 129 Chinese young adults, this study systematically examined 13 dimensions of placement prominence on the memory of placed brands.

Factor analysis has reduced the 13 dimensions into five factors: contextual, narrative, sensory, exposure and spatial prominence. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) software was used to conduct a contrarian case analysis and test for predictive validity. This was followed by a QCA to identify the optimal configurations of the five factors that may lead to a high recognition of the placed brands. The optimal configurations were also contrasted across two gender and brand familiarity groups. While the optimal configurations of prominence on brand memory for male and female participants were largely the same, the combinations differed between participants with low and high brand familiarity.

Previous studies in product placement usually operationalize prominence with a few dominant dimensions intuitively though several other dimensions, and their interactions could also affect the prominence level. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that used multiple dimensions of prominence configurations to identify paths that may lead to low and high brand memory. The empirical results contribute to the theory and understanding of the effect of prominence on brand memory and provide guidance to brand managers in determining which prominence configuration is the most suitable for achieving their promotional objective.

This research serves to determine causal configurations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) conditions that best influences grassroots football club stakeholders to meet a sponsor's goals through promotional activity.

The research uses a case study of the Essex Alliance League, a local amateur football league in England. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were held with multiple stakeholders to understand the ecosystem of grassroots football. From here, further semi-structured interviews were held with club sponsors to identify the conditions of CSR. This allowed the research to then issue a survey from which results were analysed and discussed using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA).

The ecosystem of grassroots football is formed by a myriad of stakeholders operating at a national level, all the way to more local governance structures within which the business-club relationship exists. Sponsors identified three main conditions of CSR: shared values, self-congruity, and happiness. However, following fsQCA, two pathways were found: (1) presence of shared values, and (2) presence of happiness with the absence of self-congruity.

For practitioners, adaptations can be made for clubs to attract and maintain sponsorship as businesses seek to use grassroots sport as a channel for their own CSR objectives. To attract long term sponsorship, club managers are recommended to maintain long-term relationships with business owners especially in relation to personal values, fit, and happiness. As such, the responsibility of the club to ensure its stakeholders engage in promotional activity on behalf of their sponsor will help in maximising the financial value over multiple seasons.

Where fertile ground for academic analysis in grassroots football is present, this research investigates CSR activity at this level of football, where most research is more concerned with professional levels of the game. Furthermore, this research reaches into the sport ecosystem through an understanding of co-created values between organisations in this exchange of shared values to meet common objectives.

The purpose of this study is to create the taxonomy of firms based on the nature of the relationship between market-based resources and marketing capabilities. Anchored in the configuration theory, the present study aims to explore simultaneous roles of market-based resources, i.e. customer orientation and competitor orientation, and marketing capabilities, i.e. the execution of marketing practices and activities within a firm, on firm performance.

A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data from chief executive officers or top managers of 220 firms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a transitional economy in South Eastern Europe.

Drawing on a configuration approach via the latent class analysis, the authors empirically derive four distinct strategic marketing patterns, namely, marketing super achievers, marketing-focused virtuosi, marketing drifters and marketing mass pushers. The findings also highlight how business performance outcomes differ as a function of a class membership.

Cross-sectional research design and focus on a single country are main limitations of the present study. Thus, longitudinal studies in the context of developed and fast-reforming transition economies are advisable for future work.

This study enhances the knowledge on how a firm can configure or bundle its market-based resources and marketing capabilities to produce desired outcomes. Findings suggest that joint attention to building market-oriented culture and developing marketing capabilities seems to pay off. However, the authors found that a lack of market knowledge can be substituted by the firms’ ability to build effective promotional and branding capabilities. Thus, the present study adds to the emerging dialog on the relative importance of alternative strategic orientations in achieving superior business performance.

This study contributes to the strategic marketing literature by examining the synergistic effect of market-based resources and marketing capabilities on firm performance using a configurational approach. It also provides support for the equifinality proposition, suggesting that different “bundles” of market-based resources and marketing capabilities can lead to similar level of performance outcomes.

This study aims to understand the structure of downstream network from a supply chain (SC) perspective using a case of an Indian alcoholic beverage manufacturing company. In the SC literature, many researchers and practitioners have studied the design of upstream supplier network. Very few studies have documented the design of downstream network comprising distributors, warehouses, retailers, etc. and current study attempts to contribute to this limited literature. In addition, this study also tries to understand the influence of downstream SC, if any, on top management strategies. Finally, it assesses the SC quality using the standard set of factors and provides insights for its improvement.

Single case study approach has been utilized to understand the configuration of downstream SC. A distillery in southern part of India which distributes a variety of liquor products across the market has been chosen for this study. Different data collection approaches have been adopted to understand the distribution channels prevailing in the market. In addition to the internal documents, semi-structured interviews were conducted with salesmen employed by the distillery for different group of outlets, top management of the distillery, outlet owners and counter sales person.

Different distribution channels constituting the downstream SC network of the industry in the market studied have been identified to be retails and bars, institutions, clubs, modern trade, maximum retail price and Mysore Sales International Limited. Each of the distribution channels has clearly defined their boundaries for reaching different segment of consumers. Significant influence of the existing distribution channels on strategic decisions such as new product development and pricing were noticed. Interesting inferences were obtained on the relationships existing between the distilleries and different distribution channels. Insights were also gathered on the regulatory role played by the government between the manufacturers and distributors. Few marketing and promotional strategies adopted by companies to strengthen their downstream relationships with distribution channels and, in turn, with consumers have also been discussed. The quality of alcoholic beverage SC has been assessed and was found to perform on par with the set standards of quality in robustness factors and enabling factors. Training factor needs to be further improved by providing salesmen with exposure to best practices. Effort also needs to be taken to improve in the complicating factors, i.e. the testability and time.

This study is limited to the experience of a single alcoholic beverage manufacturer in the Karnataka state in India. SC of alcoholic beverage industry in India varies across states and depends on State Government regulations. Hence, the obtained results and inferences cannot be generalized across the industries and geographies. Future studies can be carried out in different locations across the country to understand the structure and dynamics of downstream SC in this industry. Scope also exists to study how the deficiencies identified in the SC can be improved and how alcoholic beverage firms entering India adapt to the prevailing SC structure. Comparative study of downstream SC of different industries can also be conducted.

Academicians and practitioners can consider this paper as a source to understand the configuration of downstream SC of alcoholic beverage industry. More than that, this study provides a counter-intuitive inference for researchers and practitioners that choice of distribution channels have influence on the strategic decisions such as pricing and product development. Therefore, it becomes necessary to factor in the target distribution channel at the product design phase itself. This study may also help in performing a comparative study of downstream SC – especially the distribution network of different industries and identify best practices that can be adopted across the industries. Application of the standard set of factors from the food SC quality assessment literature have been demonstrated in this study to assess the downstream SC of the alcoholic beverage industry studied. In addition, this study provides several insights by detailing the structure of the SC for other alcoholic beverage manufacturers who are planning to enter Indian market.

According to author’s knowledge, it is believed that this is the first study to report the configuration of downstream SC of the alcoholic beverage industry specifically from India apart from describing their influence on strategic decisions of the company.