Search results

This paper aims at establishing a new stream of academic study for virtual brands. It explains the concepts of protobrands and reverse product placement and explores some of the managerial and academic implications.

Starting from the most recent definition of the brand construct, the paper establishes that the brand concept may now be detached from physical embodiment. The extension of application of the branding domain to the fictional and computer‐synthesized worlds is extensively illustrated by examples of virtual brands from books, films, video games and other multi‐user virtual environments.

Evidence suggests that purely potential brands (protobrands) initiated in the virtual world may possess strong consumer‐based brand equity. The study shows that the equity of the protobrands may be leveraged in‐world (and can acquire legal protection) or through reverse product placement and the launch of the physical embodiment of the protobrand in the physical world (the HyperReal brand).

This is an initial conceptual paper on virtual and HyperReal brands. This study, which has no antecedents, highlights the need for further empirical inquiry. The reverse product placement phenomenon may result in academics and practitioners to revise the traditional models of building brands.

The paper introduces and defines virtual brands, both fictional and computer‐synthesized, HyperReal brands and the reverse product placement phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to help marketing scholars view virtual worlds as new product–markets and trigger serious investigations on consumer evaluation of brand extensions when a brand is extended from the real world to a virtual world and vice versa.

The paper makes an extensive review of studies on virtual world. Further, it amalgamates understanding from well-established literature on consumer evaluation of brand extensions into the emerging virtual world understanding to conceptualize moderating influence of contexts – the real world context and a virtual world context – on how consumers evaluate brand extensions.

Through logical arguments supported by existing literature, the paper provides 14 well-conceptualized propositions that argue that the real world and virtual world contexts moderate the well-established relationships in brand extension literature. It broadly proposes that the relationships between the consumer evaluations of brand extension and its known determinants are stronger in case of within-the-world extensions and weaker in case of across-the-world extensions.

The paper introduces to the marketing scholars an entirely new area of enquiry as it challenges the known brand extension knowledge when a brand is extended across the worlds.

Marketers considering launching new offerings across the contexts of real or virtual world would have implications on whether to extend the brand or not.

Virtual worlds have largely been construed in marketing literature as fictional worlds. There is not much explored in terms of virtual worlds as new product–markets. The study offers unique value in conceptualizing differences among within-the-world brand extensions and across-the-world brand extensions.

This paper aims to provide a social network site influence (SNSI) profile of early adopters. This study explores the relationship between personality traits of early adopters of social network sites (SNS), their propensity to share information and rumors and their general SNSI.

An online survey was sent to the first users of Twitter (n = 200) and Google+ (n = 130) to assess their personality traits. Answers of each respondent were matched to their SNSI scores from Klout and PeerIndex, the industry standard for measuring SNSI.

Early adopters of SNS, in comparison to market mavens, are more likely to exert influence on one particular topic related to their profession: technology and the internet. Their levels of extraversion, openness and conscientiousness have a positive and significant impact on information sharing, and a negative impact on rumor sharing. Both, information sharing and rumor sharing have a positive and significant impact on the general SNSI of early adopters.

Firms struggle to decide whether to invest early in the life of newly created SNS as they are unsure about the characteristics of early adopters of such networks, and, more importantly, whether these sites are effective initial vectors for word-of-mouth. The findings demonstrate that early adopters’ influence (SNSI score) is on par with that of the rest of SNS users, suggesting their influence may be somewhat limited. The study also shows that the opinion leadership impact of the more influential early adopters is monomorphic in nature, being mainly confined to the related technology and internet domains.

When advertising is provided in the form of product placements – the inclusion of branded products within media programming – it can increase or decrease the consumer’s utility. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between product placements and the evaluation of media programming by consumers. The authors hypothesize that consumers do not necessarily consider them as traditional advertising because placements of real brands can enhance realism even if placements sometimes interrupt consumption experience. Thus, the authors believe the relationship between product placements and consumer evaluation is overall positive. However, too many product placements in a single program may reverse this relationship. In addition, the relationship might differ based on the nature of programming, such as art versus entertainment films.

Empirical analyses were conducted on 134 movies released between 2000 and 2007 using a generalized method of moments instrumental variable approach.

The estimation results from product placement data on 134 movies released between 2000 and 2007 show that product placements have a significant positive effect on consumer ratings, but when used in excess, the effect becomes negative. In addition, a significant interaction exists between the nature of the film (mainstream vs independent) and the number of placements, such that consumers of independent films are much less likely to view product placements positively.

This research is the first empirical paper that demonstrates the effect of product placements on the evaluation of the media using secondary data.

The purpose of this paper is to provide of selected Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulatory notices and disciplinary actions issued in January, February, and March 2012.

The paper provides Regulatory Notice 12‐03, January 2012, Complex Products: Heightened Supervision of Complex Products; Regulatory Notice 12‐05, January 2012, Customer Account Protection: Verification of Emailed Instructions to Transmit or Withdraw Assets from Customer Accounts; Regulatory Notice 12‐13, March 2012, Best Execution, SEC Approves Consolidated FINRA Best Execution Rule. It summarizes ten disciplinary actions for recommending unsuitable sales of unit investment trusts (UITs) and floating rate loan funds; using misleading marketing materials in the sale of a non‐traded real estate investment trust (REIT); selling interests in private placement offerings without having a reasonable basis for recommending the securities; unsuitable sales of reverse convertible securities; violating Regulation SHO (Reg SHO) and failing to properly supervise short sales of securities and marking of sale orders; misrepresenting delinquency data and inadequate supervision in connection with the issuance of residential subprime mortgage securitizations (RMBS); permitting a registered representative to publish advertisements that failed to provide a sound basis for a reader to evaluate the products and services being offered, contained exaggerated, unwarranted and misleading statements, and failed to disclose the firm's name; failing to conduct reasonable due diligence regarding securities an entity issued; failing to disclose certain conflicts of interest in research reports and research analysts' public appearances; and failing to develop and enforce written procedures reasonably designed to achieve compliance with NASD Rule 3010(d)(2) regarding the review of electronic correspondence.

The paper reveals for Regulatory Notice 12‐03 that the decision to recommend complex products to retail investors is one that a firm should make only after the firm has implemented heightened supervisory and compliance procedures; firms also should monitor the sale of these products in a manner that is reasonably designed to ensure that each product is recommended only to a customer who understands the essential features of the product and for whom the product is suitable. For Notice 12‐05 it finds that, given the rise in incidents reported to FINRA involving fraud perpetrated through compromised customer e‐mail accounts, FINRA recommends that firms reassess their specific policies and procedures for accepting and verifying instructions to withdraw or transfer customer funds that are transmitted via email or other electronic means, as well as firms' overall policies and procedures in this area. For Notice 12‐13: FINRA Rule 5310 leaves in place the general requirements of best execution, which are for a member firm, in any transaction for or with a customer or a customer of another broker‐dealer, to use “reasonable diligence” to ascertain the best market for a security and to buy or sell in such market so that the resultant price to the customer is as favorable as possible under prevailing market conditions.

These are direct excerpts designed to provide a useful digest for the reader and an indication of regulatory trends.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the preferences of children under the age of 12 regarding sales channels: how young consumers perceive online vs offline shopping in terms of advantages and disadvantages. Within a cross channel perspective, it also analyses the connections they make between brick-and-mortar and online stores.

Results are drawn from an exploratory and qualitative study based on a multi-category approach. In all, 62 children (34 girls and 28 boys) aged six to 12 years were interviewed about the advantages and disadvantages of each channel for shopping; how/where they would prefer to shop and why; and the links they make between a brand’s physical store and an online store.

Traditional sales outlets are more popular with six to 12 year olds than online shopping. Physical stores offer variety and instant gratification. Products can be tried out and tested on-site, making the offline retail experience a fun activity. Conversely, children express a very negative perception of e-retailing, which they often consider to be dishonest, offering limited choice at higher prices. When shopping online, delivery time can be a deterrent. Last but not least, no cross-channel shopping perceptions were found.

Several results from this study can inform marketing practices at retailers’ headquarters. Store assortment, product availability and store atmospherics are central to the success of offline shopping among six- to 12-year-old children. Retailers should find ways to transfer this relational approach to their online strategy. In the meantime, they must deliver the same basic promises as in stores: a wide choice and competitive prices, no shortage of products and no late delivery.

This study adds to the existing body of knowledge on children’s consumer behaviour in three ways. First, it provides new insight into how children perceive not the internet per se but online shopping. Second, it confirms that stores still play a dominant role in shaping the image of a retail brand, from an early age. Third, it suggests that the cross-channel perspective may not apply to very young consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the goals and processes of reverse logistics related to disposal and renewal to an industry example, in this case, the tufted carpet manufacturing industry. With an industry-wide coalition, the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), the carpet industry offers lessons for other industries on how to create new products from waste, how to develop systems to process this waste, how to encourage the development of infrastructure for reprocessing and how to remove barriers to recovery. A major part of the US floor covering cluster is headquartered around Dalton, Georgia. The industry has formed a coalition to divert manufactured carpet from landfills and find other uses for used carpet. This industry-wide coalition, known as the Carpet America Recovery Effort, offers many lessons for other industries on creating new products from waste, developing systems to process this waste, encouraging the development of infrastructure for reprocessing and removing barriers to recovery.

Academics have proposed several frameworks for examining reverse logistics. In this study, the framework developed by de Brito and Dekker (2004) is utilized because it focuses on essential forces in reverse logistics, asking four simple questions: Why? What? How? and Who? To this list, is added a question: Where? This modified framework is applied to the carpet manufacturing industry, focusing on post-consumer carpet.

The carpet industry is becoming a model for developing renewal supply chains that take waste products and create new ones. Although disposal remains the largest part of the end-of-use supply chain for carpet, this is changing, though not rapidly enough to suit the industry.

This case focuses on what the industry is currently doing and on the impediments it has encountered in developing these chains. Renewal chains may well dominate the future of reverse logistics in the industry, but much work remains. The paper concludes with a discussion and areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to review product‐placement research in the consumer‐marketing domain, examine the acceptability of the practice for buying‐center participants, and assess recall, attitude and purchase‐intention responses to B2B products placed in movie scenes.

Achievement of the research objectives requires the collection of data from a sample of organizational buying‐center participants and their exposure to B2B placements in entertainment‐media contexts. Qualified participants observed a movie containing B2B products within the context of the feature. They then completed a short questionnaire concerning their observations and the impressions gained from that observation.

Product placements, used prolifically to target household consumers, are beginning to expand into the B2B domain. This research reviews product‐placement research in the B2C domain and examines the acceptability of the practice for a sample of 127 buying‐center participants and their recall, attitude and purchase‐intention responses to B2B products placed in movie scenes. Despite some claimed negativity toward the commercial intent of the practice, results reveal that buying‐center participants find the practice to be generally acceptable for a wide array of B2B products and services.

Additional research supporting these findings could reveal a fruitful promotional outlet for B2B influence through placement within major motion picture productions.

Participants demonstrated an impressive level of recall and a modestly favorable attitude and purchase intention on exposure to experimental B2B placements viewed in movie scenes. Variables moderating that response include liking for and emotions induced by the movie, the degree of prominence and realism of the placement, and its fit with the surrounding movie content.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach at defining a retail channel strategy applied to young consumers.

The authors use a qualitative study that adopts the consumer perspective and employed an investiga-tive channel-scan approach based on two scenarios applied to 12 retailers selling childrenswear. The authors studied 139 flows between all the channels and explored the retailers’ child orientation.

The paper revealed that the channel configuration and integration of retailers showed a di-versity of approach leading us to distinguish eight different retail channel strategies. It also appears that there is limited evidence of a specific selling channels designed for children by retailers in selling products aimed at the child market.

This study contributes to the retail marking literature by showing evidence of child orienta-tion in channel management. Nevertheless, the results show the need for future research to understand the causes and effects of channel child orientation and the way it contributes to the retail channel strategy.

The findings have practical implications for retailers by providing a framework to help them in their decision-making regarding retail channel strategy. It also sheds new light on the con-tribution from young consumers in retail channel strategy.

The contribution of this paper is to explore the combined perspective of configuration and integration of the channel-to-market as part of the retail channel strategy. The paper also provides evidence of child orientation in retail channel strategy when retailers selling prod-ucts for children are concerned.

Printed wiring board placement optimization of high‐speed placement machines in a high volume surface mount line was studied based on more careful analysis of the board layout beforehand. In this method, the target is to get the board area to be assembled as small as possible in each successive placement machine, paying the most attention on component coordinates already during preliminary line balancing phase. Optimization and line balancing principles, that had showed promising results already in the first studies when compared to globally used well‐known commercial optimization systems, were now further developed. Results presented and illustrated in this paper show remarkable, comparable, improvement in both cycle time reduction and in balance of the whole surface mount line. The main difference between this method and the advanced commercial solutions is explained in detail. Board layout, feeder arrangement, sequence of fiducial registration, and XY‐table movement were taken into deeper consideration in the method.